TI-83 Plus CellSheet™ Application
Page 92
Example 3–Examine the relationship between the slope of a
secant line on a curve and a tangent line to the curve.
What is the slope of the tangent line of f(x) = x
2
at x = 3?
Compare the slope of the secant line to the tangent line as the
point (x+h,f(x+h)) gets closer to the point (x,f(x)) at x = 3. The
derivative of the function at x = 3 is the slope of the tangent line.
Secant line
Tangent line
f