Variation is a way to express a relationship between quantities.
Jenn, Founder Calcworkshop®, 15+ Years Experience (Licensed & Certified Teacher)
In other words, we want to discover how one variable affects another by looking at how they are related to each other.
As Purple Math nicely states, Variation problems aren’t hard once you understand the terminology or lingo.
For example, sometimes these values vary Directly, meaning they are constant multiples of each other, so we will multiply; vary Inversely, one variable increases while the other decreases, so we will divide; vary Jointly, one variable depends upon one or more other variables, we will create a product.
What’s cool is that regardless of how this relationship is expressed, solving problems involving Variation is straightforward as long as you know to follow three simple steps:
- Write your formula
- Substitute into your formula to find your constant of variation, k
- Substitute all remaining information to find your desired unknown value!
Important Variation Formulas
Together we will look at seven classic questions involving all three types of Variation:
- Direct Variation
- Inverse Variation
- Joint (Combined) Variation
Variation Equations (How-To) – Video
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