Lesson 19

Differentials
OBJECTIV
ES:

At the end of the lesson, the student should be able to:

• Compare the value of the differential, dy, with the actual change in y,
• define and determine the differentials of the function using
differentiation formulas
• use differentials to make approximations of the function values
 DEFINITION OF DIFFERENTIALS

• Let y = f(x) represents a function that is differentiable in an open

interval containing x.
• The differential of x (denoted by dx) is any nonzero real number.
• The differential of y (denoted by dy) is:
dy = f’(x )dx

Note: Please refer to the derivative formulas of the given function

such as algebraic (basic) or transcendental.
EXAMPLE 1:   EXAMPLE 2:
Find  dy  for  y = x3 + 5x −1.  Find  dy  for  y = 
dy  d x  5 x  1
3

 3 x 2 dx  5dx
dy  3x 2  5 dx

Note : In practice, we simply get the derivative

of the right member of the equation and
multiply it by dx.
 THE DIFFERENTIALS
The derivative of a function can often be used to approximate certain function values with
a surprising degree of accuracy. To do this, the concept of the differential of the
independent variable and the dependent variable must be introduced.
The differential of the independent variable x is written as
dx and is the same as the change in x, x. That is
dx  x, x  0
hence, f' x  dx  f x  x  - f x 

The differential of the dependent variable y is written as dy,

and is defined to be
dy  f' x  dx  f x  x  - f x 
Because y  f x  x  - f x 
t herefore dy  f' x dx  y
EXAMPLE 3: Use differentials to approximate the change in the area of a
square if the length of its side increases from 6 cm to 6.23 cm.
Let x = be the length of the side of the square.
The area may be expressed as a function of x, where  A= x2.
The differential in area, dA is:

Because x is increasing from 6 to 6.23, we find Δ x = dx = 0.23 cm;

hence, the approximate value is: dA  26 cm0.23cm
dA  2.76 cm 2
The area of the square will increase by approximately 2.76 cm 2
as its side length increases from 6 to 6.23. Note that the exact
increase in area y  is 2.8129 cm 2 .
EXAMPLE 4: Use the local linear approximation to estimate the value of
to the nearest thousandth.
EXAMPLE 5:  If y = x3 + 2x2 – 3, find the approximate value of y
when x = 2.01.
The exact value is y  y but since we are simply asked
to find the approximate value, then we shall solve for
y  dy. Note that if we write 2.01  2  0.01, then we are
considering 2.01 as the result of applying an increment
of x  dx  0.01 to an original value of x  2.
Since y  x 3  2x 2  3
then dy  3x 2  4x dx
when x  2, then y  8  8  3  13
and when x  2 and dx  0.01, then
dy  12  8 0.01  0.20
therefore, the required approximation is
y  dy  13  0.20  13.20
EXAMPLE 6: Use an appropriate local linear
approximation
to estimate the value of cos 31o.
= 0.86617
Examples:
I. Use differentials to approximate the value of the following expression.

II. Find the differential dy of the given function.