The constant shelling did not bother him as much as the loss of his food. As the siege wore on, fewer and fewer horses, mules, and dogs were seen wandering about Vicksburg. Shoe leather became a last resort of sustenance for many adults.
If the graph of a quadratic function has two x-intercepts, then the line of symmetry is the vertical line through the midpoint of the x-intercepts. The x-intercepts of the graph above are at -5 and 3. The line of symmetry goes through -1, which is the average of -5 and 3. (-5 + 3)/2 = -2/2 = -1.
The form y = mx + b of a linear equation is called slope-intercept form because the coefficients m and b represent the slope and y intercept respectively. For any equation in terms of x and y, one can calculate the y-intercept by substituting zero for the value of x. In the case of a linear equation written in slope-intercept form, substituting zero for x results in y = m(0) + b, which simplifies to y = b. Therefore, b stands for the y-intercept.