Dependent and Independent Variables

Date: 12/26/2001 at 12:02:42
From: Anonymous
Subject: Dependent and Independent variables

Identify the dependent and independent variable.

1) time it takes to travel 50 miles and the speed of the vehicle

Date: 12/27/2001 at 12:40:36
From: Doctor Jody
Subject: Re: Dependent and Independent variables

Hi,

It seems to me that you don't know how to figure out which is which 
kind of variable. In order to do this, you should first figure out 
what the variables are. In this case, you have 

  time to travel 50 miles

and

  the speed of the vehicle

as your two variables. That's all I can see in this problem. 

Now, we have to figure out the relation between these two variables.  
The questions you need to ask are: 

1) Can you change the value of the variable directly?
2) If you change the value of one, will the other (or any other) 
   variable change?  

Try it with the first variable: Can you change the time it takes to 
travel 50 miles? Sure you can, but ONLY by changing something else, 
namely, the speed of the vehicle - the other variable. That means the 
first variable is the DEPENDENT variable; its value depends on 
something else. And accordingly, it means that the second variable is 
the INDEPENDENT variable, because you can change it directly, that is, 
independently of anything else.

I hope this helps.  Please write back if you have more questions.

- Doctor Jody, The Math Forum
  http://mathforum.org/dr.math/   

Date: 12/28/2001 at 09:31:13
From: Anonymous
Subject: Dependent and Independent variables

Thank you very much Dr.Math. Now I understand it.