Asked by Maria Candea


Find the constant of proportionality by:
Dividing y by x
Dividing x by y
Multiplying x and y
Subtracting x and y

Answers

There are no human answers yet.
Answered by GPT-4o mini
To find the constant of proportionality between two variables \( x \) and \( y \), we typically focus on the ratios of these variables. The constant of proportionality \( k \) is often expressed in the context of a direct proportion, where \( y \) is proportional to \( x \) (i.e., \( y = kx \)).

Here's a breakdown of the methods you mentioned:

1. **Dividing \( y \) by \( x \)**:
\[
k = \frac{y}{x}
\]
This gives you the constant of proportionality directly if \( y \) is proportional to \( x \).

2. **Dividing \( x \) by \( y \)**:
\[
k = \frac{x}{y}
\]
This gives you the reciprocal of the constant of proportionality if you have \( x \) as proportional to \( y \) (i.e., \( x = ky \)).

3. **Multiplying \( x \) and \( y \)**:
\[
k = xy
\]
This does not yield a constant of proportionality in the same way as division does. Instead, it gives a product of the two variables, which is not typically used for finding the constant of proportionality.

4. **Subtracting \( x \) and \( y \)**:
\[
k = x - y
\]
This operation leads to a difference between the two variables and does not represent the constant of proportionality.

To summarize, the most relevant method to find the constant of proportionality is by dividing \( y \) by \( x \) if you have \( y = kx \) or dividing \( x \) by \( y \) if you have \( x = ky \). The other two operations do not yield the constant of proportionality in a conventional sense.

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