9 IMPLICIT DIFFERENTIATION

Chapter 9

IMPLICIT DIFFERENTIATION

A function of the form is said to define explicitly in terms of

. For instance, the equation defines explicitly as a
function of . We have been familiar with this type of equation and we have
been guided by the rules of differentiation in finding the derivative of such
functions. However, there are equations which are not expressed in this
manner. Some functions are defined implicitly as a function of say, .
Consider, for example, the following equations:
and .
Here, is not written explicitly in terms of . We differentiate such
equations by implicit differentiation. The rules that we have learned in
differentiation still apply in this situation.

Implicit Differentiation Procedure:

Suppose an equation involves and and we are to find . We proceed as
follows:
1. Differentiate both sides of the equation with respect to .
2. Collect all terms involving on the left side of the equation and move all
other terms to the right side of the equation.
3. Factor out of the left side of the equation.
4. Solve for by dividing both sides of the equation by the left-hand factor
that does not contain .

Example 9.1: Find the derivative of the equation .

Solution:
Step 1: We differentiate each term of the given equation with respect to .
We use the product rule of differentiation (Rule 5) for the first term, the power
rule for the second term (Rule 7) and the constant rule (Rule 1) for the term
on the right side of the equation. We have

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Since and , then we find that

Step 2: We collect the terms on the left, and get

Step 3: We factor out of the left side, thus

Step 4: Finally, we divide by to obtain

Example 9.2: Find if .

Example 9.3: and are functions of . Find and if xy  y 2  1 .

Exercise 9.1: Use implicit differentiation to find .

1. 3x  2xy  4 x y
5.  1
2. y  4 x  2y  0
2 3 y x
3. y 2 x 3  4 6. xy  y  0
5x x
4. 1 7.  2x  y  2  0
y y
Exercise 9.2: Suppose and are functions of . Find .
1. x 2  y 2  4 4. 2xy 2  3( y  2 )2  1
2. xy 2  yx 2  1 x 3
5.  2  2x .
2x y1 y
3. y 2   12
y

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Related Rates Problems

In related rates problems, two or more variables are involved say and
. Suppose and are changing with respect to a third variable say . If
these two variables are related to each other then their rates of change with
respect to are also related. We can therefore, find the rate of in terms of
the rate of . We usually employ implicit differentiation to solve these
problems.

Procedure for solving related-rate problems

1. Assign symbols to all given quantities and quantities to be determined.
Make a sketch and label the quantities if feasible.
2. Write an equation involving the variables whose rates of change either are
given or are to be determined.
3. Using the Chain Rule, implicitly differentiate both sides of the equation with
respect to time
4. Substitute into the resulting equation all known values for the variables and
their rates of change. Then solve the required rate of change.

Example 9.4: A stone is dropped into a pool and the ripples created move
outward in a circular pattern from the point where the stone entered the water.
The radius of the outermost ripple increases at a rate of 0.2 meters/second.
Find the rate at which the area covered by the ripples is increasing when the
radius of the outermost ripple is 1 meter.

Solution:
Step 1: Let be the area covered by the ripples, and be the radius of the
outermost ripples. Since the ripple is increasing at the rate of 0.2 m/s then
(constant)

We wish to find when .

Step 2: The equation that relates and is the formula for the area of a circle
of radius , thus
A  r 2 .
Step 3: Differentiate implicitly with respect to , we obtain
dA dr
 2r .
dt dt
dr
Step 4: Substitute and  0.2.
dt
dA
 2 (1)(0.2)  0.4 .
dt

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Consequently, the area covered by the ripples is increasing at a rate of 0.4

square meters per second.

Example 9.5: A 10-foot ladder is leaning against a wall. The bottom of the
ladder is pulled away from the wall at a rate of 2 feet per second. Find the
rate at which the top of the ladder is sliding down the wall when the bottom is
6 feet from the base of the wall.

Example 9.6: A person, who is 5 feet tall, is walking toward a building at a

rate of 3 feet/second. The building is 100 feet high and has a light on its top.
At what rate is the length of the person’s shadow changing?

Exercise 9.3:

1. If you blow up a balloon so that its radius increases at a rate of 2 cm/sec,

find the rate at which its surface area is changing 4 seconds after you begin
to blow it up. (The surface area of a sphere of radius is 4r 2 .)

2. Referring to Exercise 1, find the rate at which the volume of the balloon is
changing 4 seconds after you begin to blow it up. (The volume of a sphere
4
of radius is r 3 .)
3
3. A person who is 6 feet tall walks toward an 18-foot-high street light at a rate
of 5 feet/second. How fast is the length of the person’s shadow changing?

4. Two airplanes take off from the same airport at the same time. One flies
due south at 300 miles/hr, the other due west at 400 miles/hr. At what rate
is the distance between the planes changing 3 hrs after takeoff?

5. A water tank has the shape of a cone 30 meters tall with a circular base
whose radius is 3 meters. Water is being drawn out of the tank at a rate of
5 cubic meters/minute. How fast is the water level falling when the water is
20 meters deep?(The volume of a cone of height h whose base is a circle
1
of radius is r 2h .)
3
6. An observer on the shore is watching a ship steam through a canal. The
ship heads down the middle of the canal, which is one-quarter mile wide, at
a rate of 20 mph. find the rate at which the distance between the ship and
the observer is changing when the ship is 1 mile from the observer.

7. A circular oil slick is created as the result of the blowout of an offshore oil
well. The radius of the slick increases at the rate of 400 feet/hr. Find the
rate at which the area polluted by the slick is increasing 12 hrs after the
blowout.

8. The daily amount of smog produced by cars coming into a city is given by
y  2  0.01x 3 / 2 , where is smog concentration in ppm and is the
number of cars in the thousands. The number of cars coming into the city

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is increasing at the rate of 250 per day. Find the rate at which the smog
concentration will be changing when 225,000 cars are coming into the city.

9. Cases of a new disease are increasing at a rate of 10,000 per year, and the
number of deaths depends on the number of cases according to the
equation y  0.1 x . Find an expression that gives the annual death rate
due to the disease, where there are 5000 cases.

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