Sqrl on 29 September 2009
Yeah, for perpendicular lines you need to take the opposite reciprocal (sometimes called the multiplicative inverse) of the slope and plug it in.
So with a standard equation in slope-intercept form: y=mx+b, a perpendicular line can always be found with the formula y=(-1/m)x+b (but you will have to take into account the special case of an undefined slope when m=0).
For parallel you just plug in the point the line must pass through and solve for b (as you've done above).
As for the linear algebra class, you should be doing something similar to this in that class with interpolating polynomials iirc.
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