ELO1098990 secants turning into tangents A tangent line is a line that barely skims across the edge of a curve, hitting the curve (the graph) at only one point (creatively called the point of tangency). If you extend the tangent line, it may hit (intersect) the function again somewhere else but that doesn't concern us... we care only about the tangent line hitting the graph once at the point of tangency! A secant line is a line that hacks right through a curve, usually hitting the curve in 2 places. l February 27, 2011 Rates of Change and Graphs Water is being poured at a constant rate into a container. What would the graph of the Height of the Water level related to the time look like? February 27, 2011 The Slope of a Tangent Review As we have seen above, we are estimating the slope of the tangent or instantaneous rate of change ( i roc) to be: Where x is the point you are finding the slope of the tangent and h is the value you are adding to x to create a secant. The value of h is made small to form a tangent line. tangent.gsp February 27, 2011 Sometimes the tangent line is drawn ABOVE the graph (the curve) and sometimes the tangent line is drawn BELOW the curve. Whaddya think????? tangent.gsp February 27, 2011 The instantaneous rate of change is the rate at which the dependent variable changes at a SPECIFIC value of the independent variable, x =a. To estimate the iroc... we use our "slope" formula for the secant line and use 2 points really close together To calculate the iroc... we determine the slope of the tangent at a specific point February 27, 2011 Practice Pg 85 #1, 3, 4d Read & answer the 3 questions on pg 93/94 February 27, 2011