The slope of a straight line describes the line’s angle of steepness from the horizontal whether it rises or falls.
When the line neither rises nor falls, then we claim that it has a slope of zero. This is, in fact, the case of a horizontal line where it extends infinitely to its left or right but without any sign of “rising” or “falling”.
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In this lesson, the focus is to go over lots of worked examples to illustrate how to use the formula itself. Remember that two points determine a line. Thus, it is possible to calculate the slope of a straight line, denoted by the symbol,
m
m, when we know at least two points where the line passes through.
The Slope Formula
The slope,
m
m, of a line passing through two arbitrary points
(
x
1
,
y
1
)
(x
1
,y
1
) and
(
x
2
,
y
2
)
(x
2
,y
2
) is calculated as follows.