Week 3: DERIVATIVES

D EFINITION OF D ERIVATIVE

The derivative of a function f at a number a, denoted by f 1 paq, is

f pa hq
f paq
f 1 paq  lim
h Ñ0 h
if this limit exists.

If we write x  a h, then we have h  x
a and h approaches 0 if and only if x approaches

a. Therefore an equivalent way of stating the definition of the derivative is

f pxq
f paq
f 1 paq  lim
xÑ a x
a

Example 1: Find the derivative of the function f pxq  x2 2x 3 at the number a.

SOLUTION. From the above definition we have

f pa
hq
f paq
f 1 paq  lim
hÑ0 h
 lim
rpa hq2 2pa hq 3s
ra2 2a 3s
hÑ0 h
2 2 2a 2h 3
a2
2a
3
 lim
hÑ0
a 2ah h
h
2
 lim
hÑ0
2ah h
h
2h
 hlim
Ñ0
p2a h 2q  2a 2

TANGENTS

If a curve C has equation y  f pxq and we want to find the tangent line to C at the point
P pa, f paqq, then we consider a nearby point Qpx, f pxqq, where x  a, and compute the slope
of the secant line P Q:
mP Q  f pxxq

fa paq
Then we let Q approach P along the curve C by letting x approach a. If mP Q approaches
a number m, then we define the tangent to be the line through P with slope m. From the
above definition of the derivative we have
f pxq
f paq
m  lim
xÑ a x
a
 f 1 pa q

The tangent line to y  f pxq at pa, f paqq is the line through pa, f paqq whose slope is
equal to f 1 paq, the derivative of f at a. The equation of the line is

y
f paq  f 1 paqpx
aq

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 Example 2: Find an equation of the tangent line to the hyperbola y  3{x at the point p3, 1q.
SOLUTION. Let f x p q  3{x. Then the slope the tangent at p3, 1q is

f p3 hq
f p3q
3

1
1 
1
m  lim  hlim 3 h  hlim
hÑ0 h Ñ0 h Ñ0 3 h 3

p q
Therefore an equation of the tangent line at the point 3, 1 is y
1 
31 p3
3q which simplifies to
x 3y
6  0.

V ELOCITIES

In general, suppose an object moves along a straight line according to an equation of motion
s  f ptq, where s is the displacement (directed distance) of the object from the origin at time
t. The function f that describes the motion is called the position function of the object. In
the time interval from t  a to t  a h the change in position is f pa hq
f paq. The average
velocity over this time interval is

average velocity 
displacement
time
 f pa hq
f paq
h
which is the same of the slope of the secant line for finding the tangent.
Now suppose we compute the average velocities over shorter and shorter time intervals
ra, a hs. In other words, we let h approach 0. We define the velocity (or instantaneous
velocity) v paq at time t  a to be the limit of these average velocities:
f pa hq
f paq
v paq  lim 
hÑ0 h

Example 3: Suppose that a ball is dropped from the upper observation deck of the tower, 450m
from the ground and the position function is s  f ptq  4.9t2. What is the velocity of the ball after 5
seconds? How fast is the ball traveling when it hits the ground?
SOLUTION. We will need to find the velocity both when t  5 and when the ball hits the ground, so it is
efficient to start by finding the velocity at a general time t  a. We have

f pa hq
f paq
 lim 4.9pa hq
4.9a
2 2
v paq  lim
h Ñ0 h h Ñ0 h
4.9p2ah h2 q
 lim
hÑ0 h
 9.8a
Therefore, the velocity after 5s is v 5 p q  p9.8qp5q  49m{s.
Since the observation deck is 450m above the ground, the ball will hit the ground at the time t1 when
spt1 q  450, that is, 4.9t21  450 ñ t1  9.6s. The velocity of the ball as it hits the ground is therefore
v pt1 q  9.8t1  94m{s
R ATES OF C HANGE

Suppose y is a quantity that depends on another quantity x. Thus y is a function of x

and we write y  f pxq. If x changes from x1 to x2, then the change in x (also called the
increment of x) is ∆x  x2
x1 and the corresponding change in y is ∆y  f px2 q
f px1 q.

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 The difference quotient
f px 2 q
f px 1 q
∆y
∆x
 x2
x1
is called the average rate of change of y with respect to x over the interval rx1 , x2 s.
By analogy with velocity, we consider the average rate of change over smaller and
smaller intervals by letting x2 approach x1 and therefore letting ∆x approach 0. The limit
of these average rates of change is called the (instantaneous) rate of change of y with
respect to x at x  x1 , which is interpreted as the slope of the tangent to the curve y  f pxq
at P px1 , f px1 qq:
f px 2 q
f px 1 q
instantaneous rate of change  lim  x lim
∆y
∆x Ñ0 ∆x 2Ñx x
x
1 2 1
We recognize this limit as being the derivative f 1 px1 q.
We know that one interpretation of the derivative f 1 paq is as the slope of the tangent line
to the curve y  f pxq when x  a. We now have a second interpretation:
The derivative f 1 paq is the instantaneous rate of change of y  f pxq with respect to x
when x  a.

In particular, if s  f ptq is the position function of a particle that moves along a straight
line, then f 1 paq is the rate of change of the displacement s with respect to the time t. In
other words, f 1 paq is the velocity of the particle at time t  a. The speed of the particle is
the absolute value of the velocity, that is, |f 1 paq|.
T HE D ERIVATIVE AS A F UNCTION

In the preceding section we considered the derivative of a function f at a fixed number a.

Now we change our point of view and let the number a vary. If we replace a by a variable x,
we obtain
f px
hq
f p x q
f 1 pxq  lim
hÑ0 h
Given any number x for which this limit exists, we assign to x the number f 1 pxq. So we can
regard f 1 pxq as a new function, called the derivative of f and defined the above equation.
We know that the value of f 1 at x, f 1 pxq, can be interpreted geometrically as the slope of the
tangent line to the graph of f at the point px, f pxqq.
The function f 1 is called the derivative of f because it has been “derived” from f by the
limiting operation. The domain of f 1 is the set tx|f 1 pxq existsu and may be smaller than the
domain of f .

Example 4: If f pxq 
?x, find the derivative of f . State the domain of f 1.
SOLUTION.
? ?x ? ? ?x ?x

f pxhq
f pxq x h
h
x
f 1 px q    hlim ? ?x
x h
lim lim
hÑ0 h hÑ0 h Ñ0 h x h

 lim ?
px hq
?x  lim ? 1 ?x  ?x 1 ?x  2?1 x
hÑ0 hp x h xq hÑ0 x h
We see that the domain of f 1 is 0, p 8q. This is smaller than the domain of f , which is r0, 8q.

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 If we use the traditional notation y  f pxq to indicate that the independent variable is x
and the dependent variable is y, then some common alternative notations for the derivative
are as follows:
f 1 pxq  y 1  dx  dx  dx f pxq  Df pxq  Dx f pxq
dy df d

A function f is differentiable at a if f 1 paq exists. It is differentiable on an open interval

pa, bq if it is differentiable at every number in the interval.

Example 5: Where is the function f pxq  |x| differentiable?

SOLUTION. If x ¡ 0, then |x|  x and we can choose h small enough that x h ¡ 0 and hence
|x h|  x h. Therefore, for x ¡ 0, we have f 1pxq  hlim |x h|
|x|  lim px hq
x  1
Ñ0 h hÑ0 h
and so f is differentiable for any x ¡ 0. Similarly, for x   0, f 1 pxq 
1 and so f is differentiable for
any x   0. Let’s compute the left and right limits of f at x  0. We have lim
|0 h|
|0|  1 and
hÑ0 h
lim
|0 h|
|0|

1. So f 1p0q does not exist. Thus f is differentiable at all x except 0.
hÑ0
h

Theorem 1. If f is differentiable at a, then f is continuous at a.

Note that the converse of this theorem is false; that is there are functions that are
continuous but not differentiable. For instance, the function f pxq  |x| is contunuous at 0
but it is not differentiable at 0.
If f is a differentiable function, then its derivative f 1 is also a function, so f 1 may have
a derivative of its own, denoted by pf 1 q1  f 2. This new function f 2 is called the second
derivative of f because it is the derivative of the derivative of f . We write the second
derivative of y  f pxq as 

f 2 px q 
2
d
dx
dy
dx
 dx
d y
2

In general, we can interpret a second derivative as a rate of change of a rate of change.

The most familiar example of this is acceleration, which we define as follows.
If s  sptq is the position function of an object that moves in a straight line, we know that
its first derivative represents the velocity v ptq of the object as a function of time: v ptq  s1 ptq.
The instantaneous rate of change of velocity with respect to time is called the acceleration
aptq of the object. Thus the acceleration function is the derivative of the velocity function
and is therefore the second derivative of the position function: aptq  v 1 ptq  s2 ptq.
Similarly, we can define the 3rd derivative f 3 pxq, the 4th derivative f p4q pxq,... In general,
the nth derivative of f is denoted by f pnq and is obtained from f by differentiating n times.
We write
y pnq  f pnqpxq  dx
d y n
n

D IFFERENTIATION F ORMULAS

The following table shows the derivatives of the fundamental functions:

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 1. If f pxq  C where C is a constant, then f 1 pxq  0.

2. f pxq  xα ñ f 1pxq  αxα
1

3. f pxq  ax ñ f 1pxq  ax ln a, pa ¡ 0, a  1q
f pxq  ex ñ f 1 pxq  ex

4. f pxq  loga x ñ f 1 pxq  , pa ¡ 0, a  1q

1
x ln a
f pxq  ln x ñ f 1 pxq 
1
x
5. f pxq  sin x ñ f 1 pxq  cos x
f pxq  cos x ñ f 1 pxq 
sin x
f pxq  tan x ñ f 1 pxq 
1
cos2 x
f pxq  cot x ñ f 1 pxq 
2
1
sin x

6. f pxq  arcsin x ñ f 1 pxq  ? 1

1
x2
f pxq  arccos x ñ f 1 pxq 
?
1
1
x2
f pxq  arctan x ñ f 1 pxq 
1
1 x2
7. f pxq  sinh x ñ f 1 pxq  cosh x
f pxq  cosh x ñ f 1 pxq  sinh x
f pxq  tanh x ñ f 1 pxq 
1
cosh2 x
The following table shows the rules of differentiation.

1. The Constant Multiple Rule rCf pxqs1  Cf 1pxq, C is a constant.

2. The Sum Rule rf pxq  g pxqs1  f 1 px q  g 1 p x q
3. The Product Rule rf pxq.g pxqs1  f 1pxq.gpxq f pxq.g1pxq
 1 1
f pxq f pxq.g pxq
f pxq.g 1 pxq
4. The Quotient Rule
g px q
 rgpxqs2