Homework Help: calculus

Posted by hiii on Thursday, June 28, 2012 at 12:00pm.

All right, sorta hard to explain but I will try my best. I am suppose to find the equation for the that lines that are tangent to the curve y=cot^2(x) at the point (pie/4, 1)....(the x is not to the power of 2, a variable right next to the cot^2)

I am not sure how to do this and if you can help, that would be awesome. It's the cot that's really tripping me up :/

calculus - Steve, Thursday, June 28, 2012 at 12:28pm
<rant> AARGH! Who are these people that don't understand that π is PI, not PIE? </rant>

y = cot^2(x)
y' = 2cot(x)(-csc^2(x)) = -2cot(x)csc^2(x)

at x=π/4, the slope is -2(1)(2) = -4

the line through (π/4,1) with slope -4 is

(y-1) = -4(x-π/4)

massage that equation into the form you most like.
calculus - hiii, Thursday, June 28, 2012 at 12:52pm
how did u get -2(1)(2)? did u just plug the PI/4 into the formula?
calculus - Steve, Thursday, June 28, 2012 at 1:19pm
yeah, that's the way one computes the value of f(x) -- plug in the value of x.
calculus - Count Iblis, Thursday, June 28, 2012 at 1:28pm
http://wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/numberplay-pi-in-the-sky/

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