TITLE: finding a tangent line to a parabola
QUESTION [5 upvotes]: I am practicing for a math contest and I encountered the following problem that I don't know how to solve:
For which value of $b$ is there only one intersection between the line $y = x + b$ and the parabola $y = x^2 + 5x + 3$?
How do I solve it?
Edit:
I made a mistake typing the problem. It should be $y = x^2 - 5x + 3$ instead of $y = x^2 + 5x + 3 $ the answer key says the answer is -6.

REPLY [3 votes]: The tangent to parabola has slope $y' = 2x+5$ which should be slope of line =1 at the point of contact. So point of contact is at x=-2. Substituting in parabola,we get y=-3. Now this point lies on line as well.

REPLY [3 votes]: Note that you like the line $y=x+b$ to be tangent to the parabola. The slope of this line is $ m=1.$ Thus the derivative of your parabola should be the same as the slope of the tangent line. Find the point of the tangency and find the $b$ value so that the line passes through that point.