Expert: Abe Mantell - 7/9/2008

Question
I am trying to solve the following pattern for y

x     y
1     8
2     14
3
4     24
5     28


I am looking for the Function of y. I have been working for hours and would love some help.


Answer
Hello Brian,

Questions like these often have many different answers...there are
lots of different functions that pass through the given points.
The easiest one to try is a linear function, but that does not
work here, since there is not a constant slope.  The next one to try
is a quadratic.  So I found f(x)=(-1/3)x^2+7x+4/3 does pass through
the points given...then we get f(3)=58/3.

Abe