A 154-lb person burns 420 calories per hour riding an exercise bicycle at a rate of 15 mi/hr.

Write a function rule to represent the total calories burned over time by that person. Explain how the information in the problem relates to the function.

1 answer

Let x be the number of hours of exercise biking.

The function rule to represent the total calories burned over time by that person is:

C(x) = 420x

This function represents a linear relationship between the number of hours spent biking and the total number of calories burned. The slope of the line is 420, which represents the rate of calorie burning per hour. The y-intercept of this line is 0, which makes sense since if the person doesn't bike at all (x = 0), then no calories are burned.

The given information in the problem (the weight of the person and the rate of biking) is used to calculate the rate of calorie burning per hour, which is then used as the slope of the function. The independent variable is the number of hours spent biking, while the dependent variable is the total number of calories burned.