Slope of tangent line

**OzzMan** · April 7th 2008, 04:53 PM

I need some more help. Find a gneral expression for the slope of a tangent line for the given curve, then find the slopes for the given values of x.

$y=x^2$ ; $x=2$ , $x=-1$

**Mathstud28** · April 7th 2008, 04:57 PM

Originally Posted by OzzMan

I need some more help. Find a gneral expression for the slope of a tangent line for the given curve, then find the slopes for the given values of x.

$y=x^2$ ; $x=2$ , $x=-1$

the general form for the slope of a line tangent to $f(x)$ is $f'(x)$ ...so for $f(x)=x^2$ the slope at any point is $f'(x)=2x$ ...now to get the two slopes evaluate them in the derivatives $f'(2)=2\cdot{2}=4$ and $f'(-1)=2\cdot{-1}=-2$

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