TRANSFORMATION OF GRAPHS

Transformation means change. The below graph is of a parabola y = x² What we want to do is change the graph's shape. If you remember from algebra you made a table similar to the one below and selected values for x, substituted those value into y = x² one at a time and obtain a value for y and then constructed the graph. We now want to transform the graph.

x	y
0	0
1.5	2.25
2	4

There are two types of transformations - rigid and non rigid. Non-rigid are those that change the graphs shape. For a parabola that means increasing or decreasing the distance between the sides. Decreasing the distance means shrinking the graph and increasing means we are stretching it. The words contraction and expansion are also used to describe this process. So what do we do to y = x² to expand or contract it? Think about this before checking the answer. A hint is we need to alter the y value.

answer
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