MHB Walter's question from Facebook (x and y intercepts)

[Jameson]

Walter asks, "find x -intercept and the y-intercept of f(x) = x+1/1-x"

 

[Jameson]

Hi Walter,

The thing to remember about x and y intercepts is that must set the opposite axis to 0 to solve. So if you want the x-intercept you need to set $y=0$ and you'll get your answer. To find the y-intercept you need to set $x=0$ and solve. It's really easy to do the opposite so try to memorize this part somehow.

For your problem there is two parts and the equation in question is [math]y=\frac{x+1}{1-x}[/math]:

a) x-intercept: Setting $y=0$ gives us [math]0=\frac{x+1}{1-x}[/math]. Can you take it from here?

b) y-intercept: Setting $x=0$ gives us [math]y=\frac{0+1}{1-0}[/math] or [math]y=\frac{1}{1}[/math] or simply $y=1$

Jameson