CHAPTER III: DERIVATIVES

Increments. The increment ∆𝑥 of a variable x is the change in x as it increases or decreases from one
value 𝑥 = 𝑥 to another value x = x1 in its domain. Here ∆𝑥 = 𝑥 − 𝑥 and we may write 𝑥 = 𝑥 + ∆𝑥.
If the variable x is given an increment ∆𝑥 from x = xo (that is, if x changes from 𝑥 = 𝑥 to 𝑥 = 𝑥 + ∆𝑥)
and a function y = f(x) is thereby given an increment ∆𝑦 = 𝑓(𝑥 − ∆𝑥) − 𝑓(𝑥 ) from ∆𝑦 = 𝑓(𝑥 ), then
the quotient
∆𝑦 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑦
=
∆𝑥 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑥
is called the average rate of change of the function on the interval between 𝑥 = 𝑥 to 𝑥 = 𝑥 + ∆𝑥.
Example:
When x is given the increment ∆𝑥 = 0.5 from 𝑥 = 1, the function 𝑦 = 𝑓(𝑥) = 𝑥 + 2𝑥 is given the
increment ∆𝑦 = 𝑓(1 + 0.5) − 𝑓(1) = 5.25 − 3 = 2.25. Thus, the average rate of change of y on the
∆ .
interval between 𝑥 = 1 and 𝑥 = 1.5 is = = 4.5
∆ .

The Tangent to a Curve

The first problem that we’re going to take a look at is the tangent line problem. Before getting into this
problem it would probably be best to define a tangent line.

A tangent line to the function f(x) at the point x = a is a line that just touches the graph of the function at
the point in question and is “parallel” (in some way) to the graph at that point. Take a look at the graph
below.

In this graph the line is a tangent line at the indicated point because it just touches the graph at that point
and is also “parallel” to the graph at that point. Likewise, at the second point shown, the line does just
touch the graph at that point, but it is not “parallel” to the graph at that point and so it’s not a tangent line
to the graph at that point.
At the second point shown (the point where the line isn’t a tangent line) we will sometimes call the line a
secant line.
In general, we will think of a line and a graph as being parallel at a point if they are both moving in the
same direction at that point. So, in the first point above the graph and the line are moving in the same
direction and so we will say they are parallel at that point. At the second point, on the other hand, the line
and the graph are not moving in the same direction and so they aren’t parallel at that point.
Okay, now that we’ve gotten the definition of a tangent line out of the way let’s move on to the
tangent line problem. That’s probably best done with an example.
There are a couple of important points to note about our work above. First, we looked at points that were
on both sides of x =1. In this kind of process it is important to never assume that what is happening on
one side of a point will also be happening on the other side as well. We should always look at what is
happening on both sides of the point. In this example we could sketch a graph and from that guess that
what is happening on one side will also be happening on the other, but we will usually not have the
graphs in front of us or be able to easily get them.
Next, notice that when we say we’re going to move in close to the point in question we do mean that
we’re going to move in very close and we also used more than just a couple of points. We should never
try to determine a trend based on a couple of points that aren’t really all that close to the point in question.

The next thing to notice is really a warning more than anything. The values of mPQ in this example were
fairly “nice” and it was pretty clear what value they were approaching after a couple of computations. In
most cases this will not be the case. Most values will be far “messier” and you’ll often need quite a few
computations to be able to get an estimate.

Last, we were after something that was happening at x =1and we couldn’t actually plug x =1 into our
formula for the slope. Despite this limitation we were able to determine some information about what was
happening at x =1 simply by looking at what was happening around x =1. This is more important than
you might at first realize and we will be discussing this point in detail in later sections.
Before moving on let’s do a quick review of just what we did in the above example. We wanted the
tangent line to f (x) at a point x = a . First, we know that the point P =(a,f(a)) will be on the tangent
line. Next, we’ll take a second point that is on the graph of the function, call it Q =(x, f(x)) and compute
the slope of the line connecting P and Q as follows,

We then take values of x that get closer and closer to x = a (making sure to look at x’s on both sides of x
= a and use this list of values to estimate the slope of the tangent line, m.
The tangent line will then be,

Y = f(a) + m(x-a)

Rates of Change
The next problem that we need to look at is the rate of change problem. This will turn out to be
one of the most important concepts that we will look at throughout this course.
Here we are going to consider a function, f(x), that represents some quantity that varies as x varies. For
instance, maybe f(x) represents the amount of water in a holding tank after x minutes. Or maybe f(x) is the
distance traveled by a car after x hours. In both of these example we used x to represent time. Of course x
doesn’t have to represent time, but it makes for examples that are easy to visualize.

What we want to do here is determine just how fast f(x) is changing at some point, say x = a. This is
called the instantaneous rate of change or sometimes just rate of change of f(x) at x = a .
As with the tangent line problem all that we’re going to be able to do at this point is to estimate the rate of
change. So let’s continue with the examples above and think of f(x) as something that is changing in time
and x being the time measurement. Again x doesn’t have to represent time but it will make the
explanation a little easier. While we can’t compute the instantaneous rate of change at this point we can
find the average rate of change.

To compute the average rate of change of f(x) at x = a all we need to do is to choose another
point, say x, and then the average rate of change will be,

Then to estimate the instantaneous rate of change at x = a all we need to do is to choose values of x
getting closer and closer to x = a (don’t forget to chose them on both sides of x = a ) and compute values
of A.R.C. We can then estimate the instantaneous rate of change form that.

Let’s take a look at an example.

So, just what does this tell us about the volume at this point? Let’s put some units on the answer from
above. This might help us to see what is happening to the volume at this point. Let’s suppose that the
units on the volume were in cm3. The units on the rate of change (both average and instantaneous) are
then cm3/hr.

We have estimated that at t = 5 the volume is changing at a rate of 15 cm3/hr. This means that at t = 5 the
volume is changing in such a way that, if the rate were constant, then an hour later there would be 15 cm 3
more air in the balloon than there was at t = 5 .
We do need to be careful here however. In reality there probably won’t be 15 cm3 more air in the balloon
after an hour. The rate at which the volume is changing is generally not constant and so we can’t make
any real determination as to what the volume will be in another hour. What we can say is that the volume
is increasing, since the instantaneous rate of change is positive, and if we had rates of change for other
values of t we could compare the numbers and see if the rate of change is faster or slower at the other
points.

For instance, at t = 4 the instantaneous rate of change is 0 cm3/hr and at t = 3 the instantaneous rate of
change is -9 cm3/hr. I’ll leave it to you to check these rates of change. In fact, that would be a good
exercise to see if you can build a table of values that will support my claims on these rates of change.

Anyway, back to the example. At t = 4 the rate of change is zero and so at this point in time the volume is
not changing at all. That doesn’t mean that it will not change in the future. It just means that exactly at t =
4 the volume isn’t changing. Likewise at t = 3 the volume is decreasing since the rate of change at that
point is negative. We can also say that, regardless of the increasing/decreasing aspects of the rate of
change, the volume of the balloon is changing faster at t = 5 than it is at t = 3 since 15 is larger than 9.
The Derivatives
Given a continuous function y=f(x), the derivative of y or f(x) is defined as the (instantaneous) rate of
change of y with respect to the independent variable x expressed mathematically as:
𝑑𝑦 𝑓(𝑥 + ∆𝑥) − 𝑓(𝑥)
𝑓 (𝑥) = = lim
𝑑𝑥 ∆ → ∆𝑥
Graphically, the (instantaneous) rate of change of a function is the slope of the tangent line at a point on a
graph of that function. Therefore, we can also say that differential calculus is about finding the slope of a
tangent line to the graph of a function, or equivalently, differential calculus is about finding the rate of
change of one quantity with respect to another quantity.
Other Examples:
See link: (Disclaimer: Not my video yet, wait for updates. Thank you for your patience)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aTLjoDT1GQ&t=1000s