What’s the Point?
Lots of things in math, real life, and math representing real life, aren’t straight lines, they curve in different ways. This video discusses how to go about finding the slope of a curve at different points. Hint: the slope isn’t a constant.
TL;DW
- The slope changes continually along the slope. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be a curve, it would be a straight line. 😉
- This means that for curves, the slope has to be calculated at each point you’re interested in.
- To calculate the slope at a point on a curve, essentially you create a straight line which is tangent to, that is, parallel to, the curve at that point, and get the slope of that line. In this example, I just guesstimated and it came out pretty close, and no, I didn’t cheat by fudging the line or numbers.
Where To:
What is Slope Velocity Y Intercept
Fitting Line to Data Curve Example Slope of Slope
The Worksheet Khan Academy
Khan has lots of examples!