What is the slope of a line parallel to #4x+y=-1#?

1 Answer
Jul 23, 2014

I would start by putting this into slope-intercept form, which is:

y= mx+b

Where m is the slope and b is the y intercept. So, if we rearrange the equation into this form, we get:

#4x+y=−1#
#y=-4x−1#

This means that the slope is -4 and this line intercepts y at -1.

For a line to be parrallel, it must have the same slope and a different y-intercept, so any line with a different "b" would fit this description, such as:

#y=-4x-3#

Here's a graph of these two lines. As you can see, they are parrallel because they'll never intersect:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/grapher/exports/exwnlaf3uz.png