Lines in the Plane and Slope

Introduction

The simplest mathematical model for relating two variables is the linear equation $y=mx+b$. This equation is called Linear because its graph is a line. $m$ is the slope and $(0,b)$ is the y-intercept.

Finding the slope $m$

For instance, suppose you want to find the slope of the line passing through the points $(x_{1},x_{2})$ and $(y_{1},y_{2})$.

Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle Slope =\frac {y_2-y_1}{x_2-x_1} =\frac {y_1-y_2}{x_1-x_2}}

Notes:

A vertical line has equation of the form Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle x=a } where Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle a } is any constant.