Question

What is the slope of a line that is perpendicular to the line whose equation is 7x−3y=10 7 x − 3 y = 10 ?

a. −37

Answer 1

The perpendicular line will have a slope of -3/7.

To find this, we first have to solve our equation for slope intercept form.

7x - 3y = 10 ----> subtract 7x

-3y = -7x + 10 ----> divide by -3

y = 7/3x - 10/3.

So we know the slope of this equation to be 7/3. Since perpendicular lines have opposite and reciprocal slopes, we know we can simply flip the fraction and make it a negative to get the new slope of -3/7.