Question

Preston and Joel are both solving the equation 2x=14. Preston is not sure what to do because he does not know a power of 2 that equals 14. Joel uses his calculator to graph y=2x and y=14 and find the point of intersection. Will Joel's method work?

Answer 1

Answer:

  yes

Step-by-step explanation:

You can always separate an equation into two parts and see where those graphs intersect.

Joel's method works well.

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Additional comments

Preston should know that the invention of logarithms makes it easy to solve equations like this. x = log₂(14) = log(14)/log(2) ≈ 3.8073549.

As for Joel's method, I prefer to subtract the right side to get the equation ...

  2^x -14 = 0

Then graphing y = 2^x -14, I look for the x-intercept. Most graphing calculators make it easy to find x- and y-intercepts. Not all make it easy to find points of intersection between different curves.