Law—Supreme Course Docket: The total number of cases on the docket of the U.S. Supreme Cou...

Law—Supreme Course Docket: The total number of cases on the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court has increased over the past few decades. The number of cases on the Supreme Court docket from 1980 to 2011 can be modeled by the quadratic function

 f(x) = −1.79x2 + 219.65x + 4891 0 ≤ x ≤ 31

where x represents the number of years since 1980, and f(x) represents the number of cases on the U.S. Supreme Court annually. (Source: Office of the Clerk, U.S. Supreme Court.)

(a) Use the model to determine the number of U.S. Supreme court cases in 1985.

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(b) In 1972, then–Chief Justice Warren Burger warned of the increasing Court workload, stating, “something must be done to arrest the increase in docketed cases.” (Source: Los Angeles Times.) Determine msec when x = 5 and Δx = 25, and interpret the result.