Greenwood press

8
ASYMPTOTE
A person jumping from an airplane will
reach a terminal velocity at which he can-
not fall any faster due to wind resistance.

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nels. In such situations, workers take an increased risk of the tunnel caving in, as
well as having to deal with the added distance covered by equipment to extract
dirt and rocks. This means that tunneling down 11 to 20 feet may be twice as dif-
ficult than tunneling the first 10 feet; and tunneling down 21 to 30 feet may be
three times as difficult than tunneling down 11 to 20 feet, and so on. Con-
sequently, a vertical asymptote will exist near the deepest level on a graph, indi-
cating that it would be nearly impossible to dig at certain depths. Geologists
would find this information useful, thus being able to recommend the appropri-
ate digging depths that would be safe and economically beneficial to the gov-
ernment and local business.
Vertical asymptotes also sometimes symbolize quantities that are nonexist-
ent. For instance, if a preschool wants to build an enclosed playground for its stu-
dents, it would need to build a fence. The builders would consider the best way
to lay out their available fencing so that the students have a large amount of play
space. A function to describe the dimensions of a rectangular play space are
w =
200
l
, where 
w is the unknown width of the field, l is the unknown length of 
the field, and 200 square feet is the desired area of the play space. In this case,
l = 0 is a vertical asymptote, because not only is it impossible to divide by zero,
but it is impossible to have a rectangular play space that does not have any
length!
online sources for additional exploration
The basics of cooling food

Investigate the behavior of northwestern crows

Modeling of disease and disease progression
progression.htm>