Scribe for 18 Sept 2008

The first thing we did today was get back Homework 8: Mystery Tables, which most of the class got an R on, for lack of explanation. We will be able to revise them to earn points back. Today we also went over our worksheet about factoring with rational functions and all that fun stuff, which I'm not going to put on here because it would take a long time to explain, and there were just a few problems. Class went fairly well otherwise, expcept for the point at which we were sidetracked by talking about big numbers such as gogol and gogolplex and infinity, which prompted Mr. Marchetti to say, "We're talking about a HUGE number that makes damn big look damn small!"

Notes:

y=1/x+5 is undefined @ x=-5
the vertical asymptote (VA) is @ x=-5
the horizontal asymptote (HA) is @ y=0

for a more complicated rational function:
h(x) = 2/(xsquared + 4x +3)
the denominator can be factored as (x+3)(x+1) which can then be set to equal zero to find the vertical asymptotes:
(x+3)(x+1) = 0
x= -3, -1
VA: x= -3
x= -1
HA: y=0

some other notation-type stuff we learned was about infinity, which I don't know how to write on here, but essentially, it is phrased like this:

as x approaches infinity, y approaches 0
as x approaches negative three from the right, y approaches negative infinity
as x approaches negative one from the right, y approaches infinity

then the last thing we talked about was if we had really big numbers being plugged in for x. for example:
y= 5x+3/7x+5
x= a billion

5 billion/7 billion
billions cancel out
we're left with 5/7
so, as x approaches infinity, then y approaches 5/7

we also looked at the next POW 8: A Spin on Transitivity, which we will have a week and a half to do

Announcements:
We will have a test this coming Wednesday, the 24th of September

Homework:
Revise Homework 8 for next Thursday, start on POW 8, and from the rational functions worksheet, pick a few problems from each section of questions:
# 1-10
# 11-18
# 19-24
#25-34
# 41-46