Interpreting Graphs - Lines tudents who successfully complete this primer will be able to: . Identify what the different parts of the slope-intercept form of a line equation correspond to on a graph. 0 Determine what the slope of a position vs. time graph tells you about velocity. I Determine what the slope of a velocity vs. time graph tells you about acceleration. efore working on this primer, you may need to review: a The slope-intercept form of a straight-line equation . Finding the slope of a line o The denitions for velocity and acceleration or additional practice, you may want to review Finding the Equation (y=mx+b) from a Graph Iterpreting the equation of a line he generic slope-intercept format for writing the equation of a line is y=mx+b where y is the parameter represented by the artical axis on a graph. x is the parameter represented by the horizontal axis on the graph. m is the slope (i.e. rise/run) of e line and b is the y-intercept (i.e. the value where the graph crosses the vertical axis). For example, shows the graph of a 1e with the equation v= 4t+1 where the vertical axis represents velocity (v) :2 (mil) leasured in \ m mI's and the horizontal axis represents time (t) measured \ m 5. '2 ll coording to the generic slope-intercept format. the slope of the line is 4 '0 1d the value where the line crosses the vertical axis is 1. However, these 5' alues have physical meaning too. Since the units on the left side are \ m : IIs. the terms on the right side must have units of \ 'n mls as well. If we 6 ug in t=0\\;\ rn s. we get v = 1\\;\ m mls, which tells us the velocity starts off 5 : 1\\;\ m mI's (also known as the initial velocity). Also, the slope must have ' ts of \\tfrao{\ n m!s}{\ m s}. This indicates that the slope of the line is 3 .;\ m \\tl'rao{mls}{s}. which represents the acceleration. 2 1 eet of changing parameters 0 rm 0 l 2 a car.) | __ 18 1 Typesetting math. 21% I? _'. /