Question

A straight line, L, is perpendicular to the straight line y=2x-1 and passes through the point (8,1). Find an equation of L

Answer 1

Let's call that other line with the eqn. y=2x-1 line M.
This line is in slope-intercept form, which means that it is written in the form y=mx+b where m is the slope and b is the y-intercept.
This means that the slope of line M is 2.

Perpendicular lines have slopes which are opposite reciprocals.
(that is to say, if you flipped the fraction and changed the sign)

Of course, 2 isn't a fraction, but it's implied as 2/1.
The opposite reciprocal would then be -1/2.
Let's plug this into our slope-intercept form equation for line L.

y = mx + b
y = -1/2x + b

Of course, we still need to find that y-intercept. (y when x = 0)
To do this, we need to interpret the slope.
Slopes are rise over run, so m = -1/2 means a change of -1 in y = 2 in x.
Let's take a point we know is in our line, (8, 1).
To find that y-intercept, we want x to be 0.
To do this, we'd have to subtract 8 from x.
And according to our slope, this means adding 4 to y.
Our y-intercept is at (0, 5), with the value b that we use being just 5.

$\boxed{y=-\frac{1}2x+5}$