Question

Finding the Slope of a Line

What are the coordinates of the first alien who needs to be rescued?
What is the slope of the line that provides the correct path to rescue the alien?

Answer 1

I don’t have the picture or the alien coordinates, so I can’t give the specific answer yet. Can you either paste the coordinates or upload the diagram?

Meanwhile, here is how to get the answers once you have the data:

1. Identify the coordinates of the aliens from the diagram (each alien is a point (x, y)). The “first” alien depends on the problem wording — for example it might be the one closest to the rescuer, the one you encounter first along a given path, or the one with the smallest x-value. Tell me which rule applies if it’s not obvious.

2. If the correct rescue path is the straight line through two known points A(x1,y1) and B(x2,y2), the slope m of that line is
m = (y2 − y1) / (x2 − x1)
(provided x2 ≠ x1; if x2 = x1 the line is vertical and the slope is undefined).

Example: if the first alien is at (2, 3) and the rescue point is at (7, 11), then
m = (11 − 3) / (7 − 2) = 8 / 5 = 1.6.

Send the diagram or the coordinates and the rule for “first,” and I’ll compute the exact coordinates and slope.