February 8, 2020 15:26 How to Derive a Formula Vol. I: Basic Analytical. . .

– 9in x 6in b3368-p1-ch01 page 5

Essential Functions 5

y becomes large and positive. Again, the function must cross the
x-axis one time or more.
Next, to get an idea what any polynomial function looks like, we can
examine the point where the curve of a polynomial crosses the y-axis.
That’s simple: we set x = 0 and the y intercept is at y = f (0) = a0 .
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Now, what about where it crosses the x-axis? To find that out, we
need to solve for x the equation
0 = a0 + a1 x + a2 x2 + · · · + an xn (I.1.3)
It has n solutions; however, some of them may not exist as real
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numbers. Also, we might find that two solutions are the same; then,
in this case, the curve simply touches the x-axis either from above
or below—this will be a turning point, which we’ll discuss below.
To understand why, first note that we may write Eq. (I.1.3) in the
following form for a repeated root about x = x0 :
y = f (x) = (x − x0 )2 (b0 + b1 x + b2 x2 + · · · + bn−2 xn−2 ) (I.1.4)
where (b0 + b1 x + b2 x2 + · · · + bn−2 xn−2 ) doesn’t contain x − x0 as a
factor. You can check whether Eq. (I.1.4) will yield doubly repeated
roots by setting y = 0. Now, close to x0 , we can write y ≈ c(x − x0 )2 ,
where c = (b0 + b1 x0 + b2 x20 + · · · + bn−2 xn−2
0 ). This indeed describes
a curve touching the x-axis.
However, if we find three solutions that are the same, we cross
the x-axis again. Now, there is something special about this crossing
point; it is a point of inflection, which again we’ll discuss later. Gen-
erally, if a root is repeated an odd number of times, the curve will
cross at that point, and if repeated an even number of times, it will
only touch the point. Also, a polynomial curve will cross or touch
the x-axis as many times as the number of different real values that
solve Eq. (I.1.3).
To orientate ourselves further, we should look for turning points:
points where the gradient of the curve is zero. As the reader should
already know, we find the gradient by differentiating Eq. (I.1.2) with