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EDUCATION

Horizontal Translation: How to Shift Graphs

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Horizontal Translation

Shifting graphs horizontally (also known as horizontal translation) is slightly different from vertical translation, but still pretty straight-forward. Perhaps it would be helpful to review my posting on vertical shifts of graphs. Recall from that section: “Picture all the complex stuff that is happening to x as being one chunk of the height component, and then when you add the + 5 to the equation, you are really just adding an additional height chunk to the total height for a given x.” I think this simplification condenses the rest of that post down quite nicely.

Shifting Graphs – Horizontal Translation

Now, to shift a graph horizontally, you include the shift amount with x. So, whatever action was being done just to x before, now you do that same thing to x plus the shift amount. Make sense? Probably not.

Check out the example below that hopefully demonstrates this better than I can explain with words.

If you want to shift the original function of f(x) = x2 + 4 by 3 units, it becomes f(x) = (x-3)2 + 4.

Can you see what I mean by including the shift amount WITH x. The ‘square’ function acts on the entire (x-3) term. This will cause the graph to shift 3 units to the RIGHT. This may seem somewhat counter-intuitive, but it is correct. Subtracting terms from x shift the graph to the right, whereas adding terms to x will translate them to the left.

In this example, x-3 causes a horizontal translation of the graph 3 units right… if it were x+3, it would translate the graph 3 units left. Here is a bit of a trick you can use to help you recall the direction of the shift caused by the signs. It may be easier to remember this by analyzing the “x and shift amount”, letting this small term equal to 0, and then solving for x. The result will show you how many units to move, and in what direction. Like this:

x – 3 = 0

x = 3 (shift 3 units right)

OR

x + 3 = 0

x = (-3) (shift 3 units left)

That shows you how far over, and in what direction, the new x values are! Technically, this is a way of finding a zero of the graph, but that is another post for another day. For now, I think it’s a helpful trick to apply at this stage!

I hope these postings on graph manipulations are helpful. Horizontal translation of functions and their graphs is still quite simple, albeit with the trick with the signs that you don’t have to worry about with vertical translation.

ALSO READ: Using the Quadratic Formula

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EDUCATION

Quarter Pounds to Grams: Understanding the Measurement

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Quarter Pounds to Grams

How many grams in a quarter pound, we need to understand the basics of units of measurement. A quarter pound is a unit of weight commonly used in the United States, while grams are a unit of weight in the metric system.

The Metric System

The metric system is a decimal-based system that is widely used around the world. It’s based on the gram, which is a unit of weight that is defined as one thousandth of a kilogram.

Converting Quarter Pounds to Grams

To convert a quarter pound to grams, we need to know that 1 pound is equal to 453.592 grams. Therefore, a quarter pound is equal to 113.398 grams.

illustration of weights and a ruler - how many grams in a quarter pound stock illustrations

Practical Applications

Understanding how to convert between units of measurement is crucial in various fields, including cooking, science, and commerce. For instance, if you’re a recipe developer, you may need to convert ingredients from one unit to another to ensure accuracy.

One user reported, “I was trying to follow a recipe that used metric measurements, but I only had a scale that measured in pounds. I was able to convert the ingredients using an online converter, and it worked perfectly!”

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How many grams are in a quarter pound?

A: A quarter pound is equal to 113.398 grams.

Q: How do I convert pounds to grams?

A: To convert pounds to grams, you can multiply the number of pounds by 453.592.

Q: What is the difference between a quarter pound and 100 grams?

A: A quarter pound is approximately 113.398 grams, which is more than 100 grams.

Q: Can I use an online converter to convert quarter pounds to grams?

A: Yes, there are many online converters available that can help you convert quarter pounds to grams quickly and accurately.

Conclusion

Units of measurement, you’ll discover the importance of understanding how to convert between different units. Whether you’re a professional or simply someone who loves to cook, being able to convert quarter pounds to grams is a valuable skill. 

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EDUCATION

Trigonometry: Special Angle Triangles

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Trigonometry

Trigonometry is the type of math that you use when you want to work with angles. Luckily, some angles are used so frequently that they have their own dedicated name and shortcuts that you can memorize. These are called special angles in trigonometry, and you can use special angle triangles to help.

Special angles are great to know because their trigonometric functions equate to very specific and known ratios, so if you can memorize these it will save you a lot of time in doing trigonometry homework! To make things a bit easier, if you can’t remember these exact values, it is even easier to memorize the special angle triangles that these angles are based off of! And there are only two triangles, so you will find that it is very easy to derive the trig functions if you can’t remember them.

Specifically, the trig functions are easy to find for these special angles, which are: 0, 30, 45, 60, and 90 degrees.

45-45-90 Triangle

This will hopefully make sense after looking at the triangles I mentioned. Here’s another site that also talks about remembering the patterns of these triangles instead of specifically remembering the math. Create a right angle triangle with two 45 degree angles, and with two sides of 1 unit length. By using the Theorem of Pythagoras, you can find that the hypotenuse of this triangle is easy to calculate to be length √2. This is what this triangle looks like:

So then, from these values and using the memorization trick of SOHCAHTOA (here a quick trig cheat sheet for reference), you can obtain the trigonometric values for this special angle of 45 degrees. You can work out that:

Sin(45) = 1/√2 

Cos(45) = 1/√2 

Tan(45) = 1

Don’t worry if you can’t remember these values and ratios. The easiest way to remember them is to memorize how to construct the special angle triangle. And as you can see, this triangle is very simple: a right angle triangle with a 45 degree angle and 2 sides of length 1, and you can easily fill in the rest and then work out the ratios yourself.

30-60-90 Triangle

The second of the special angle triangles, which describes the remainder of the special angles, is slightly more complex, but not by much. Create a right angle triangle with angles of 30, 60, and 90 degrees. The lengths of the sides of this triangle are 1, 2, √3 (with 2 being the longest side, the hypotenuse. Make sure you don’t put the √3 as the hypotenuse!). FreeMathHelp also has a good explanation of this particular triangle. This triangle looks like this:

Here are the trig ratios that you can easily find:

Sin(30) = 1/2 

Cos(30) = √3/2 

Tan(30) = 1/√3

Sin(60) = √3/2 

Cos(60) = 1/2 

Tan(60) = √3/1 = √3 

Once again, just remember the triangle, and the ratios are easy to derive!

For 0 and 90 degrees, there isn’t a triangle to remember (although please feel free to correct me if I am wrong!), so you will actually have to memorize these values. However, these aren’t complex. I usually just remember the pattern of the following list:

Sin(0) = 0 

Cos(0) = 1 

Tan(0) = 0 

Sin(90) = 1 

Cos(90) = 0 

Tan(90) = undefined

If you can’t memorize the actual trigonometric ratios for the special angles, the key is to recall the special angle triangles that describe them.  Make sure that you know how to construct the triangles, and then you can solve the trig ratios of the trigonometry special angles.  You will quickly find that doing trigonometry questions that use these special angles are easy!

(This is an old post from my previous math site, In Mathematics, copied here to consolidate all my math pages.)

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EDUCATION

Logarithm Rules

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Logarithm Rules

In my previous post, I introduced the concept of logarithms to you. I explained how logarithms and exponents are connected, and then showed you a quick trick to help you remember how to convert between the two. Now in this post, I’m going to go a little bit deeper and explain a few rules of logarithms to help you actually do math with them. Considering how you now already know that logs and exponents are related, it should come as no surprise that, just like there is a set of exponent rules, there is also a set of logarithmic rules.

As you look at these logarithm rules, keep in mind that by convention, if you write logs without the subscript number to indicate their base, it is assumed that you are dealing in base–10. For simplicity, this is the convention that I am going to use in this post, though these rules certainly apply when dealing with logs of other bases.

With that intro out of the way, let’s get to it.

The first law of logarithms is the product rule. If you are familiar with the product rule of exponents, then this logarithm law should be a piece of cake for you. Where the exponent rule says that when multiplying exponential expressions with the same base, you simply add the exponents, this same thing applies when multiplying logarithms of the same base. Therefore, the rule states that the logarithm of a product is equal to the sum of the logarithms.

This rule is very commonly used, and it is important to recognize that you can use it in either direction. That is, the logarithm of a product converts to a sum of logarithms, and vice versa.

The next logarithmic law is the quotient rule. Again, this law can easily be derived by applying your knowledge of the exponent quotient rule (though I will leave that for you as an exercise). However, it does appear to look different. This rule states that the logarithm of a quotient is equal to the logarithm of the numerator minus the logarithm of the denominator. Sounds like a mouthful, but the expression is probably much simpler to understand.

Again, watch for opportunities to use this relationship in either direction!

The third law of logs is the power rule. This one is surprisingly simple to remember, and again can be found by manipulating exponent and logarithm laws. Quite simply, this law says that when you have a logarithm of an exponential expression, the exponent can be “brought out” of the log and used as a coefficient for the log.

The last of the rules of logarithms that I’m going to discuss here today is called the base change rule. Recall that I stated above that all of my examples that I’ve used so far in this post use the convention of an assumed base–10. If I wanted to change my expression to utilize a different base, this rule helps us to do that. So then, if I have my log in some base of a number, and I want to express this in terms of a different base, I simply take the log in my new base of the original number and divide that by the log in my new base of the original base. Sounds wordy, but again, a picture is worth a thousand words:

Here, my original base is B, and my new base that I want to express things in is X.

That is all I have to say about the rules of logarithms in this short introduction to them. They are fairly straight forward themselves, though can be used in very complex equations. I will try to do a separate post soon outlining some examples of all of these rules, though I do think that the general forms that I’ve noted above are pretty self-explanatory.

If you are interested in learning more about logarithms, there is a much more thorough summary of logarithms at the Learning and Teaching Math blog, which I highly recommend (for this and other math topics!)

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