Given:
The length of the candle remaining unburned, in inches, can be modeled by the equation
where, t represents the number of hours since the candle was lit.
To find:
The slope and its interpretation in the context of the problem.
Solution:
Slope intercept form of a linear function is
where, m is slope and b is y-intercept or initial value.
We have,
It can be written as
The coefficient of t is -1. So, using slope intercept form the slope of this equation is -1.
Here, -1 means length of the candle remaining unburned is decreasing at the rate of 1 inch per hour.