Average Rate of Change Over an Interval

Key Questions

  • Can average rate of change be negative?

    Answer:

    Yes.

    Explanation:

    Remember that the rate of change could be things like acceleration, not just speed.

    Even though speed itself is a scalar and cannot be negative, you can have a negative velocity by adding direction (which makes it a vector)

    Also, if your speed is decreasing, you decelerate, which is another word for negative acceleration.

    For example, let's say you had the function sin(x) to show the speed in respect to time.

    graph{sinx [-10, 10, -5, 5]}

    We can see that your speed increases until it reaches a certain point. There, we see that it decreases to a certain point. The decrease represents negative rate of change. (Deceleration in this case.)

    Parabola · 2 · Apr 15 2018

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