I have a circle centered around the origin and a straight line, L, that is tangent to the circle at point P. With this, the line passes through point A, which is not part of the circle. If the circle has a radius of 7, and point A is at (17, 0), what is the coordinate of P. I have no idea how to go about this.
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As stated your problem does not have enough information to solve it.
If the problem was from a textbook, carefully re-reading it may let you know the missing piece of information (a single piece of information, like the distance from point P to point A (no effort at all with that information!), or the equation of line L, would be enough to let you solve the problem, at least to the point of defining two possible coordinates for point P). If it was a teacher's creation, it is defective.
For the information you give, draw the basic image and look at it. The circle can like ANYWHERE along line L except the single place that makes points P and A the same point. In addition to the infinite number of points P that permits, consider the line rotating around point P for a full 360 degrees and all the infinite places in between... infinity times infinity, so to speak!
So carefully re-read the problem especially looking closely at everything written in it to ensure you do not read over information presented in story form and that takes a second of reasoning to realize it even IS information. This is a common way for textbook writers to build problems. And cause them...
If the problem was from a textbook, carefully re-reading it may let you know the missing piece of information (a single piece of information, like the distance from point P to point A (no effort at all with that information!), or the equation of line L, would be enough to let you solve the problem, at least to the point of defining two possible coordinates for point P). If it was a teacher's creation, it is defective.
For the information you give, draw the basic image and look at it. The circle can like ANYWHERE along line L except the single place that makes points P and A the same point. In addition to the infinite number of points P that permits, consider the line rotating around point P for a full 360 degrees and all the infinite places in between... infinity times infinity, so to speak!
So carefully re-read the problem especially looking closely at everything written in it to ensure you do not read over information presented in story form and that takes a second of reasoning to realize it even IS information. This is a common way for textbook writers to build problems. And cause them...
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Yep, bad construction by the teacher if it was a practice test.
Probably he/she left something out when whipping the test up. Practice tests are often last minute ideas intended to help the students realize how far from perfect their knowledge is in the hope they will study a bit more.
Probably he/she left something out when whipping the test up. Practice tests are often last minute ideas intended to help the students realize how far from perfect their knowledge is in the hope they will study a bit more.
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And like most last minute ideas, bits get left out.
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