I started teaching myself about physics a couple of days ago and I have a couple of questions. The tutorial I was reading was about graphs in 1D kinematics. Here is the equation I have questions about:



What do those triangles stand for? And the 2 and 1 beside the y''s and x''s, does that mean I subtract the right point from the left point? Thanks for any help.

The triangle is the Greek letter Delta, and in this context is used to mean "Difference". i.e "slope equals difference in Y divded by difference in X"

The 1s and 2s are indicating the first and second point, i.e. If you have a line running from point (x1,y1) to (x2,y2). The formula then gives you the gradient (slope) of that line.

Thanks for the help. Everything makes sense now.