Question

a non - linear function\
aniyahs graph on the previous page showed that the ratio between employees and shipments stays the same. she could count on every new employee shipping 60 new shipments per day. this kind of steady ratio is called a constant rate of change.\
but what if it were more complicated? what if new employees cant ship as fast as the warehouse gets more crowded? the more people, the more they bump into each other. so each new employee makes everyone work a little slower.\
this would be a non - linear function.\
why is this a non - linear function?

Explanation:

A linear function has a constant rate of change (slope). In the complicated case, as more employees are added, the rate at which each new employee contributes to shipments decreases (because of crowding—each new employee slows everyone). So the rate of change isn’t constant, which means the function isn’t linear (non - linear functions have a changing rate of change, not a steady one).

Answer:

This is a non - linear function because the rate of change (the number of shipments per new employee) is not constant. As the warehouse gets more crowded with new employees, each new employee causes a decrease in the overall shipping rate (they make everyone work slower), so the relationship between the number of employees and the number of shipments does not have a steady, constant rate of change, which is required for a function to be linear.