February 27, 2011

Secants and Tangents

ELO1098990 secants turning into tangents
A tangent line is a line that barely skims across the
edge of a curve, hitting the curve (the graph) at only
one point (creatively called the point of tangency).
If you extend the tangent line, it may hit (intersect) the
function again somewhere else but that doesn't concern
us... we care only about the tangent line hitting the
graph once at the point of tangency!
A secant line is a line that hacks right through a
curve, usually hitting the curve in 2 places.
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February 27, 2011
Rates of Change and Graphs
Water is being poured at a constant rate into a container.
What would the graph of the Height of the Water level
related to the time look like?
February 27, 2011
The Slope of a Tangent Review
As we have seen above, we are estimating the slope of the tangent or
instantaneous rate of change ( i roc) to be:
Where x is the point you are finding the slope of the
tangent and h is the value you are adding to x to create
a secant. The value of h is made small to form a
tangent line.
tangent.gsp
February 27, 2011
Sometimes the tangent line is drawn
ABOVE the graph (the curve)
and
sometimes the tangent line is drawn
BELOW the curve.
Whaddya think?????
tangent.gsp
February 27, 2011
The instantaneous rate of change is
the rate at which the dependent variable
changes at a SPECIFIC value of the
independent variable, x =a.
To estimate the iroc... we use our
"slope" formula for the secant line
and use 2 points really close
together
To calculate the iroc... we
determine the slope of the tangent
at a specific point
February 27, 2011
Practice
Pg 85 #1, 3, 4d
Read & answer
the 3 questions on pg 93/94
February 27, 2011