Is substituting the same as equating two functions

algebra-precalculussystems of equations

Maybe a silly question here, but I want to check my understanding. I am looking into the number of intersections between a line and a curve, and finding said number through the discriminant. The steps I’ve been told are:

  1. Equate the two functions
  2. Move everything to LHS
  3. Find the discriminante for resultant quadratic
  4. Depending on number of answers we know the number of intersections.

This all makes sense to me. However, one of the solved examples is:
Find the range of values of q for which the line x + 2y = q meets the curve x(x + y) + 8 = 0
And the first thing they do is rearrange the linear equation for x and then substitute into the quadratic. Once this is done I understand the rest of the process.

But here’s my question. Is this substitution the same as the concept of equating the functions? I’m guessing it is but I’d like to make sure I’m not just making it suit the problem I’m looking at if the reason why the substitution works is another one.

Thanks for your help!

Best Answer

Quoting @Amaan M: Imagine you have two functions, y=f(x) and y=g(x). Since f(x)=y, you can substitute f(x) into y=g(x) in place of y, which is how you get to f(x)=g(x). So, equating two functions is the same as substitution.

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