Question

What is the slope of the line perpendicular to the line `y=-5x+9`?

Answer 1

Remember that the slopes of perpendicular lines are negative reciprocals.

First find the slope of your original equation. Since #y=-5x+ 9# is written in slope intercept form, `y=mx+b`, we find that the slope is `-5`

Now find the negative reciprocal of `-5`

We can rewrite `-5` as `-5/1`.

The negative reciprocal of this will be `1/5`

Thus the slope of the line perpendicular to the line `y=-5x+9` is `1/5`