Sharp324 wrote:
Who wants to tell me the basic equations, like linear equations. Ive gotten so stupid since i got kicked out of school, but going back next year so i need to remember...
Linear equations are used to describe things that grow at a constant rate.
Say... you have a constant flow of water into a pool. That would be a good example of a linear problem.
Say the pool has 1000 gallons of water to begin with. And there's a pump that delivers 20 gallons/minute.
You would have something like this:
Current pool volumn in gallons) = flow * time + initial pool volumn
Now notice in the example above that the
Flow and the
Initial Pool Volumn are given to you (20 g/min and 1000 g). They don't change over time. So they're CONSTANTS. People use
A, B, C for constants.
What change over time are the
pool volumn and the
time. They're VARIABLES. People use
X, Y for variables.
So looking at the linear equation above, we can re-write them like:
y = ax + b (notice they're much shorter and easier on the eyes)
y = current pool volumn
a = flow
x = time (in minute)
b = initial pool volumn
At any time, if you tell me how many minute the pump runs, I can use the equation to tell you what's the current volume of the pool. It's a LINEAR problem because the volume of the pool INCREASE CONSTANTLY with time.
An example of something not linear would be your char level and the XP amount it takes to level up. They're NOT LINEAR since the higher the level, the more ridiculous the amount of XP it takes to ding.
Graphically, 'a' would be your slope of the line and 'b' would be your y-intercept (where the line intersects the y-axis)
Now, there are different ways to express the linear equation. Read here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_equation
Hope it helps a bit.