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

1 Answer
Feb 5, 2015

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