There are three types of graphical symmetry you may be responsible for: x-axis, y-axis, and origin. Knowing the properties of symmetry can help you when sketching complex graphs. x-Axis Symmetry If an equation or function is symmetric with respect to the x-axis. you can fold the paper it is graphed on along the x-Axis and [...]
Coordinate Plane The coordinate plane is used to represent ordered pairs of real numbers by points in a plane and determine relationships between those points and the segments, lines or curves that connect them. The axes form four quadrants. The x values are positive from the origin to the right and are negative from [...]
President Obama announced his carbon pollution standards for power plants on 8/03/2015. In it he outlines a 32% cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. Currently, Nebraska gets about 72% of its electricity from coal. According to the American Wind Energy Association, Nebraska has the potential of meeting more than 118 times the state's current electrical [...]
One of the benefits of graphing calculators and graphing software is that it allows you to learn things about functions and equations that would have been tedious to explore via pencil and graph paper. Families of graphs is a concept that starts with a "parent" function or equation and asks you to compare "child" functions [...]
What better way to show what you know about functions than to use them to create "art"? Here is a challenge for you. Go to Desmos.com and create a work of art that uses at least ten functions of which you must include one of each of the conics - a hyperbola, a parabola, an ellipse, [...]
It is one thing to read about a tire rotating at a specified number of revolutions per second. It is another to be able to visualize it. When you add lights to bike tires and film at dusk you slow things down enough to make sense of the question. How fast is the bicycle going? [...]
You have to love people who make lemonade from lemons. A recent photo circulating in FaceBook made me envious, for just a fraction of a second, of the people in Boston who are dealing with the historic snow falls of the 2014-2015 winter. Snow Pit, South Boston, MA. 2015. Courtesy Bill McKay The [...]
Texas Instruments has dominated the graphing calculator market since the TI-81 debuted in 1990. Despite the fact that many free graphing calculator apps for smart phones and tablets are more than capable of performing the same tasks, the calculators stubbornly hold their market share. The advantage lies in the fact that many TI calculators are [...]
Low Tide Versus High Tide These images show low tide and high tide on January 19, 2011 near the Golden Gate NOAA tide gauge in the San Francisco Bay. The question is, is this normal or is there cause for concern? Data from the tide gauge for this time frame is available from the [...]
