Are Perpendicular Lines Opposite Reciprocals?

Perpendicular lines have slopes that are negative reciprocals of one another. The given line's slope is 5, which means that the slope of the other line must be its negative reciprocal.

Are perpendicular lines slopes opposite?

Perpendicular lines are lines that intersect at right angles. If you multiply the slopes of two perpendicular lines in the plane, you get −1 . That is, the slopes of perpendicular lines are opposite reciprocals .

Are the slopes of perpendicular lines negative reciprocals?

Put this together with the sign change, and you get that the slope of a perpendicular line is the "negative reciprocal" of the slope of the original line — and two lines with slopes that are negative reciprocals of each other are perpendicular to each other.