- #1
roman15
- 70
- 0
Homework Statement
a line passes through the point (1,1/8) and intersects the positive x-axis at the point A and the positive y-axis at the point B. What is the shortest possible distance between A and B?
Homework Equations
i came up with three slopes for this line
m1=-b/a m2=-1/8(a-1) m3=(1/8)-b
A(a,0) and B(0,b)
The Attempt at a Solution
well i tried using these equations to solve for a in terms of b and then use that in the distance equation, but when i differentiated i ended up with a cubic function and i could solve
then i tried looking at the problem using similar triangles and the breaking up the distance between them into two parts, but then i got that b was 1/8 and a was 1 which doesn't make sense