a baker has modeled the monthly operating costs for making wedding cakes by the function y=0.5x^2-12+150 where y is the total cost in dollars and x is the number of cakes prepared. what is the minimum cost?

Question

anonymous · Answer

find the minimum cost by finding the second coordinate of the vertex
the first coordinate is always $-\frac{b}{2a}$ which in your case is $$-\frac{-12}{2\times .5}=12$$

anonymous · Answer

to find the actual cost, replace $x$ by $12$ and see what you get for the minimum.  
they really stretch for these "word" problems, don't they?