What is slope? If you have ever walked up or down a hill, then you have already experienced a real life example of slope.
As you go uphill, you may feel like you are spending lots of energy to get yourself to move. The steeper the hill, the harder it is for you to keep yourself moving. Keeping this fact in mind, by definition, the slope is the measure of the steepness of a line.
In real life, we see slope in any direction. However, in math, slope is defined as you move from left to right.
I repeat we always measure slope going from left to right. This is very important!
There are four types of slope you can encounter. A slope can be
- positive
- negative
- equal to zero
- undefined.
When the slope is equal to zero, we say that there is no slope.A positive slope:
If you go from left to right and you go up, it it a positive slope.
A negative slope:
If you go from left to right and you go down, it it a negative slope.
A zero slope:
If you go from left to right and you don’t go up or down, it it a zero slope.
An undefined slope:
A slope is undefined if you neither move to the right nor to the left. Instead, you are dealing with a vertical line where the possibility is to either go up or down.
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