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The curve was first proposed and studied by René Descartes in 1638. [1] Its claim to fame lies in an incident in the development of calculus.Descartes challenged Pierre de Fermat to find the tangent line to the curve at an arbitrary point since Fermat had recently discovered a method for finding tangent lines.
l = slope length α = angle of inclination. The grade (US) or gradient (UK) (also called stepth, slope, incline, mainfall, pitch or rise) of a physical feature, landform or constructed line is either the elevation angle of that surface to the horizontal or its tangent. It is a special case of the slope, where zero indicates horizontality. A ...
This leads to the definition of the slope of the tangent line to the graph as the limit of the difference quotients for the function f. This limit is the derivative of the function f at x = a, denoted f ′(a). Using derivatives, the equation of the tangent line can be stated as follows: = + ′ ().
For example, in the two-dimensional case, the normal line to a curve at a given point is the line perpendicular to the tangent line to the curve at the point. In the three-dimensional case a surface normal , or simply normal , to a surface at a point P is a vector that is perpendicular to the tangent plane to that surface at P .
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.
Solutions to a slope field are functions drawn as solid curves. A slope field shows the slope of a differential equation at certain vertical and horizontal intervals on the x-y plane, and can be used to determine the approximate tangent slope at a point on a curve, where the curve is some solution to the differential equation.
These are an infinite family of circles tangent to the -axis of the Cartesian coordinate system at its rational points. Each fraction / (in lowest terms) has a circle tangent to the line at the point (/,) with curvature . Three of these curvatures, together with the zero curvature of the axis, meet the conditions of Descartes' theorem whenever ...
[b] Even though the tangent line only touches a single point at the point of tangency, it can be approximated by a line that goes through two points. This is known as a secant line. If the two points that the secant line goes through are close together, then the secant line closely resembles the tangent line, and, as a result, its slope is also ...