kilograms is the mass of the Antarctic iceberg than the mass of the Rock of Gibraltar? Show your work and write your answer in scientific notation.
Make sure to explain all the steps it took you to get the answer! :)
We can say that a relationship between two variables is a function if, for every input, we get one and only one unique output. If we want to talk about y as a function of x in this problem, we want to make sure that every x has only one y associated with it. We can do this by solving our equation for x and seeing whether we can have more than one y that satisfies that equation. Here, I'll do the algebra and briefly explain my steps:
Multiply either side by x to cancel the denominator in 1/x:
Add 5x to either side to collect all of the x terms on one side, and subtract 1 to get all of the constants on one side:
Factor an x out of the left side of the equation:
Divide either side by 3y + 5 to get the x by itself:
For every x we pick, only one y can satisfy the above equation, so we can say that yes, is a function.