Find the slope of a line perpendicular to the line whose equation is 5, x, minus, 2, y, equals, minus, 105x−2y=−10. Fully simplify your answer.

1 answer

To find the slope of a line perpendicular to the given line, we first need to determine the slope of the line represented by the equation \( 5x - 2y = -10 \).

We can rewrite this equation in slope-intercept form, \( y = mx + b \), where \( m \) is the slope.

Starting with the equation:

\[ 5x - 2y = -10 \]

We isolate \( y \):

\[ -2y = -5x - 10 \]

Now, divide every term by \(-2\):

\[ y = \frac{5}{2}x + 5 \]

From this form, we can see that the slope \( m \) of the line is:

\[ m = \frac{5}{2} \]

The slope of a line that is perpendicular to another line is the negative reciprocal of the original line's slope. Therefore, we take the negative reciprocal of \( \frac{5}{2} \):

The negative reciprocal is calculated as follows:

\[ \text{slope of perpendicular line} = -\frac{1}{\frac{5}{2}} = -\frac{2}{5} \]

Thus, the slope of a line perpendicular to the given line is:

\[ \boxed{-\frac{2}{5}} \]