2.

1 The Tangent Problem

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The Tangent Problem (1 of 5)
The word tangent is derived from the Latin word tangens, which means
“touching.”

We can think of a tangent to a curve as a line that touches the curve and
follows the same direction as the curve at the point of contact. How can this
idea be made precise?

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The Tangent Problem (2 of 5)
For a circle we could simply follow Euclid and say that a tangent is a line ℓ that
intersects the circle once and only once, as in Figure 1(a).

Figure 1(a)

For more complicated curves this definition is inadequate.

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The Tangent Problem (3 of 5)
Figure 1(b) shows a line ℓ that appears to be a tangent to the curve C at point P,
but it intersects C twice.

Figure 1(b)

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Example 1
Find an equation of the tangent line to the parabola y = x 2 at the point P(1, 1).

Solution:
We will be able to find an equation of the tangent line ℓ as soon as we know its
slope m.
The difficulty is that we know only one point, P, on ℓ, whereas we need two
points to compute the slope.

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Example 1 – Solution (1 of 4)
But observe that we can compute an approximation to m by choosing a nearby
point Q ( x, x 2 ) on the parabola (as in Figure 2) and computing the slope mPQ
of the secant line PQ. (A secant line, from the Latin word secans, meaning
cutting, is a line that cuts [intersects] a curve more than once.)

Figure 2

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Example 1 – Solution (2 of 4)
We choose x ≠ 1 so that Q ≠ P. Then
x2 − 1
mPQ =
x −1

For instance, for the point Q(1.5, 2.25) we have

2.25 − 1
mPQ =
1.5 − 1
1.25
=
0.5
= 2.5

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Example 1 – Solution (3 of 4)
The tables in the margin show the values of mPQ for several values of x close to 1.

x mPQ x mPQ
2 3 0 1
1.5 2.5 0.5 1.5
1.1 2.1 0.9 1.9
1.01 2.01 0.99 1.99
1.001 2.001 0.999 1.999

The closer Q is to P, the closer x is to 1 and, it appears from the tables, the
closer mPQ is to 2.

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Example 1 – Solution (4 of 4)
This suggests that the slope of the tangent line ℓ should be m = 2.
We say that the slope of the tangent line is the limit of the slopes of the secant
lines, and we express this symbolically by writing
x2 − 1
lim mPQ = m and lim =2
Q →P x →1 x − 1

Assuming that the slope of the tangent line is indeed 2, we use the point-slope
form of the equation of a line [y − y1 = m(x − x1)] to write the equation of the
tangent line through (1, 1) as
y − 1 = 2 ( x − 1) or y = 2x − 1

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The Tangent Problem (4 of 5)
Figure 3 illustrates the limiting process that occurs in Example 1.

Q approaches P from the right

Figure 3

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The Tangent Problem (5 of 5)

Q approaches P from the left

Figure 3

As Q approaches P along the parabola, the corresponding secant lines rotate

about P and approach the tangent line ℓ.

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The Velocity Problem

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The Velocity Problem (1 of 1)
Through experiments carried out four centuries ago, Galileo discovered that
the distance fallen by any freely falling body is proportional to the square of the
time it has been falling. (This model for free fall neglects air resistance.)

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Example 3
Suppose that a ball is dropped from the upper observation deck of the CN
Tower in Toronto, 450 m above the ground. Find the velocity of the ball after 5
seconds.
Solution:
The difficulty in finding the instantaneous velocity at 5 seconds is that we are
dealing with a single instant of time (t = 5), so no time interval is involved.

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Example 3 – Solution (1 of 3)
However, we can approximate the desired quantity by computing the average
velocity over the brief time interval of a tenth of a second from t = 5 to t = 5.1:
change in position
average velocity =
time elapsed
s ( 5.1) − s ( 5 )
=
0.1
4.9 ( 5.1) − 4.9 ( 5 )
2 2

=
0.1
= 49.49 m s

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Example 3 – Solution (2 of 3)
The following table shows the results of similar calculations of the average
velocity over successively smaller time periods.

Time interval Average velocity (m/s)

5 ≤ t ≤ 5.1 49.49
5 ≤ t ≤ 5.05 49.245
5 ≤ t ≤ 5.01 49.049
5 ≤ t ≤ 5.001 49.0049

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Example 3 – Solution (3 of 3)
It appears that as we shorten the time period, the average velocity is becoming
closer to 49 m/s.
The instantaneous velocity when t = 5 is defined to be the limiting value of
these average velocities over shorter and shorter time periods that start at t = 5.
Thus it appears that the (instantaneous) velocity after 5 seconds is 49 m/s.

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