What are the equations of 2 lines that are perpendicular to the line: 4x+y-2 = 0?

1 Answer
Nov 15, 2015

y = 1/4 x + b

(b can be any number)

Explanation:

Lets rewrite the equation 4x+y-2=0 to solve for y.

4x+y-2=0
4x+y=2
y=-4x+2

This new equation now fits into the helpful format y=mx+b

With this formula b is equal to the y intercept and m is equal to the slope.

So if our slope is -4 then to calculate a perpendicular line we flip the number and change the sign. So -4/1 becomes 1/4.

We can now construct a new equation with the new slope:

y =1/4 x +2

That is a perfectly acceptable answer to this question, and to easily generate more equations we can simply change the y intercept to any number we want.

y =1/4 x +2
y =1/4 x +10
y =1/4 x - 6