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Originally Posted by Disinfo Agent
On a final note, I was not familiar with the term "y-intercept". I've only ever heard "intercept". Is it standard in English?
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As I learned it, the y-intercept is the value of y when x is zero, and the x-intercept is the value of x when y is zero. In other words, they're the points where the graph of the function crosses the axes.
A well-formed function in one variable can have only one y-intercept (or none, if it's not defined for x = 0), but could have none, one, or many x-intercepts. There's an interesting branch of applied math that is concerned with finding those roots computationally. It's not always easy.