# What is the slope of any line perpendicular to the line passing through (-6,1) and (7,-2)?

Apr 7, 2018

See a solution process below:

#### Explanation:

The formula for find the slope of a line is:

$m = \frac{\textcolor{red}{{y}_{2}} - \textcolor{b l u e}{{y}_{1}}}{\textcolor{red}{{x}_{2}} - \textcolor{b l u e}{{x}_{1}}}$

Where $\left(\textcolor{b l u e}{{x}_{1}} , \textcolor{b l u e}{{y}_{1}}\right)$ and $\left(\textcolor{red}{{x}_{2}} , \textcolor{red}{{y}_{2}}\right)$ are two points on the line.

Substituting the values from the points in the problem gives:

$m = \frac{\textcolor{red}{- 2} - \textcolor{b l u e}{1}}{\textcolor{red}{7} - \textcolor{b l u e}{\left(- 6\right)}} = \frac{\textcolor{red}{- 2} - \textcolor{b l u e}{1}}{\textcolor{red}{7} + \textcolor{b l u e}{6}} = - \frac{3}{13}$

Let's call the slope of a perpendicular line: $\textcolor{b l u e}{{m}_{p}}$

The slope of a line perpendicular to a line with slope $\textcolor{red}{m}$ is the negative inverse, or:

$\textcolor{b l u e}{{m}_{p}} = - \frac{1}{\textcolor{red}{m}}$

Substituting the slope for the line in the problem gives:

$\textcolor{b l u e}{{m}_{p}} = \frac{- 1}{\textcolor{red}{- \frac{3}{13}}} = \frac{13}{3}$