THE TANGENT LINE

TO THE GRAPH OF A
FUNCTION AT A
POINT
TANGENT LINE

- line which touches the graph at only one

point.
- line touching a cirle at one point.
- (from some dictionaries) touching but not
intersecting.
- tangent comes from the latin word tangere
meaning "to touch" (Noli me tangere).
Which of the following is a tangent
line?
Touching and intersecting are very similar concepts in
mathematics. The distinction may arise from the
interpretation that a line touching a curve stays entirely on
one side (below or above) of the curve, while intersecting
means that the tangent line "cuts through" the curved ( the
tangent line is above the curve to the left of the point of
tangency while it is below the curve to the right of the point
of tangency or vice versa).
How to draw Tangent lines to curve at a point

One more way to see this is to choose the line through a point that
locally looks most like the curve . Among all the lines through a point
(c,f(c) ), the one which best approximatels the curve y=f(x) near the
point (c,f(c)), is the tangent line.
Another way of qualitatively understanding the tangent line is to visualize
the curve as a roller coaster. The tangent line to the curve at a point is
parallel to the line of sight of the passengers looking straight ahead and
sitting erect in one of the wagons of the roller coaster.
Example # 1:

Notice that on the unit circle, these points

corresponds to the points (0,1) and (0,-1) so
whenever the graph is smooth (meaning there
are no sharp corners), the tangent lines at the
"peaks" and "troughs" are always horizontal.
Remark:

Notice the use of the articles a and

the in the definition above it should
bbeene emphasize that if a tangent
line exists , then it must be unique,
much the same as in limits.
Example # 2:
The tangent line to another line at any
point is the line itself. (This debunks the
idea that a tangent line touches the graph
at only one point.) Indeed let l be a line
and let P be on l. Observe that no matter
what point Q on l we take , the secant line
PQ is l itself. Hence, the limiting position
of a line l is l itself.
 END......

Prepared by:
Genesyl A. Romero