What is the slope of a line perpendicular to 3x - 2y = 6?

Answer 1

Hi Sarah. The first thing to do is to make y = to something.

In the given equation, let’s bring the 3x to the right side. Now we have -2y = -3x + 6. Now let’s divide everything by -2 to get y.

That gives us y = 3/2 x - 3. Notice the slope is 3/2.

To find the slope perpendicular to the above equation, the slope has to be the negative reciprocal. That means we take 3/2, flip it to become 2/3, and then make it a minus.

So the slope is 3/2. The idea is that the product of the two slopes is -1 to be reciprocal.