What’s the answer

Question

What is the midpoint of the line segment with endpoints (16,2) and (-4,-8) in the standard (x,y)

Answer 1

First, you will need to look up and memorize the Midpoint Formula (x, y) = (x1 + x2/2 , y1 + y2/2).

Then you look at the endpoints and substitute these in, like so:

x, y = 16 + (-4)/2 , 2 + (-8)/2 = 16 - 4/2, -6/2 = (6, -3). this is your midpoint for these two endpoints.

Remember we are finding this by taking the averages of the x and y values. Just as you would find the average of two numbers by adding all of the data values, then dividing by the number of values!

Answer 2

Hi Kamel!

In order to find the midpoint of a line segment, we just need to employ the midpoint formula, where we take a look at each of the values for X and Y, and simply divide them by two.

(X_m, Y_m) = ((X₁+X₂)/2, Y₁+Y₂)/2)

So for the X values, we have 16 and -4. In order to find the midpoint for the X value, we...

(16 + -4) / 2 = 6

And for the Y values, 2 and -8, we...

(2 + -8) / 2 = -3

Which gives us our midpoint on that line segment at (6, -3)