16.4k views
5 votes
Find the equation of the line that is perpendicular to the line y =- 1/3 x-1 and passes through the point (1, 5)? Justify how you knew what slope to use for step 1. Show ALL work needed to complete this problem

User Anhinga
by
5.3k points

2 Answers

4 votes

Answer:

The equation of the perpendicular line would be y = -3x + 8

Explanation:

User Ibn Rushd
by
5.7k points
1 vote

Answer:

The equation of the perpendicular line would be y = -3x + 8

Explanation:

In order to find this line, we must first find the slope of the original line. We can do this by looking at the coefficient of x, which is 1/3

This shows us a slope of 1/3. T0 find the perpendicular slope, we use the opposite and reciprocal. This means we negate 1/3 to get -1/3 and then we flip it to get -3. Now that we have this, we can use the slope and the point in point-slope form to get the equation.

y - y1 = m(x - x1)

y - 5 = -3(x - 1)

y - 5 = -3x + 3

y = -3x + 8

User Steven Schlansker
by
5.3k points