find the slope of the line perpendicular to each given line y=2x-1

Question

anonymous · Answer

Perpendicular means it has a negative reciprocal of the slope you are given.

The slope in this problem is 2   (the number in front of the x when you have y = )

so the negative reciprocal is  -1/2       because 2 is like 2/1

anonymous · Answer

but why is it
 not just 1/2

anonymous · Answer

because it is always the negative of that or the opposite of that....

anonymous · Answer

If you really understand graphs and can visualize two graphs that meet at 90 degree angles, you should be able to see that one of the lines needs to be a positive slope and one of them needs to be a negative slope.