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Secant line. In geometry, a secant is a line that intersects a curve at a minimum of two distinct points. [ 1] The word secant comes from the Latin word secare, meaning to cut. [ 2] In the case of a circle, a secant intersects the circle at exactly two points. A chord is the line segment determined by the two points, that is, the interval on ...
The slope of this line is (+) (). This formula is known as the symmetric difference quotient. In this case the first-order errors cancel, so the slope of these secant lines differ from the slope of the tangent line by an amount that is approximately proportional to .
In numerical analysis, the secant method is a root-finding algorithm that uses a succession of roots of secant lines to better approximate a root of a function f. The secant method can be thought of as a finite-difference approximation of Newton's method. However, the secant method predates Newton's method by over 3000 years.
The difference between two points, themselves, is known as their Delta (Δ P ), as is the difference in their function result, the particular notation being determined by the direction of formation: Backward difference: ∇F (P) = F (P) − F (P − ΔP). The general preference is the forward orientation, as F (P) is the base, to which ...
Gradient. The gradient, represented by the blue arrows, denotes the direction of greatest change of a scalar function. The values of the function are represented in greyscale and increase in value from white (low) to dark (high). In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function of several variables is the vector field ...
Slope illustrated for y = (3/2)x − 1.Click on to enlarge Slope of a line in coordinates system, from f(x) = −12x + 2 to f(x) = 12x + 2. The slope of a line in the plane containing the x and y axes is generally represented by the letter m, [5] and is defined as the change in the y coordinate divided by the corresponding change in the x coordinate, between two distinct points on the line.
The other method, namely the secant method, uses the compliance-crack length equation given by ASTM standard to calculate effective crack length from an effective compliance. Compliance at any point in Load vs displacement curve is essentially the reciprocal of the slope of the curve that ensues if the specimen is unloaded at that point.
In Euclidean plane geometry, a tangent line to a circle is a line that touches the circle at exactly one point, never entering the circle's interior. Tangent lines to circles form the subject of several theorems, and play an important role in many geometrical constructions and proofs. Since the tangent line to a circle at a point P is ...