Slope of a curve at a point - AP Calculus AB

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Question

Find the slope of the line tangent to the curve of d(t) when t is equal to 0.

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Answer

Find the slope of the line tangent to the curve of d(t) when t is equal to 0.

So, we are asked to find the slope of a tangent line at a particular point. To do so, we need to find the derivative of our function, and then evaluate it at the given value of t.

Let's begin by finding d'(t).

To do so, we need to use the power rule, as well as the rules for sine and cosine.

  1. Power Rule

  1. Sine Rule

  1. Cosine Rule

Now, we can use all of these to find the derivative of d(t)

Becomes:

Now, we are almost there, but we need to evaluate this derivative when t=0.

This simplifies quite nicely to:

So, the slope of our tangent line when t=0 is negative 17.

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