Derivative by Definition-Formal definition explained with examples, pictures, and an ...

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Derivative by definition
Calculus Pre Calculus

How do you find slope if you only know 1 point ???

In the prior lesson on "what is a derivative", we spent a lot of time trying to understand the difference between a secant and a tangent and, at the end, we learned that a derivative is the slope of a line at a specific point. However, there is a major problem here:

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derivative= slope of a curve at a specific point.

A Specific Example of our dilemma

Imagine that we have some curve, like the red one below, and we know that the point (1,2) is on that curve. The slope of the purple line is the derivative so all that we need to know is the slope of the purple line. But how do we find the slope of a line when we only know 1 point ?

sl ope =

y x

2 ? 1 ?

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2013-05-03

Derivative by Definition-Formal definition explained with examples, pictures, and an ... Page 2 of 4

means the 'slope of the tangent line at x ="a" '

How do we define the tangent mathematically?

There are two common definitions of tangent. Both of these definitions are equivalent definitions of the derivative at a point. They are presented side by side below. One of the notations used to represent the derivative is f

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Reset Both Version 1

Pause Both Version 2

This version represents the derivative with respect to the point

( a,f( a) ) ,( i . e. f( a) ) f( x) f( a) i f( a)= l m x a x a

In this equation, we are saying find the slope of the tangent line between two points when you add almost zero to go from the first x0 value to the next.

i f( x0)= l m =
h 0

f( x0 + h) f( x0) h

What does this mean?

What does this mean?

The formula above means This formula represents the Find the slope between the points (x,f(x)) and (a,f(a)) such same idea as version 1. We are saying that the points are that the point (x,f(x)) gets infinitesimally close to (a,f(a)) practically identical because we only moved an extremely small amount over. Point one ( x0,f( x0) ) and point two x0 + h,f( x0 + h) ( ) so the

x= ( x0 + h) x0 = h
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Example Problem 1
Find the slope of the tangent line of y = x2 + 3x using both formulas at x = 5

Version 1

Version 2

Example Problem 2

Find the slope of the tangent line of y = 4x + 1 using both formulas at x = 2

Version 1

Version 2

Example Problem 3
1 Find the slope of the tangent line of y = x using both formulas at x 1 =3

Version 1

Version 2

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2013-05-03

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Derivative

Calculus

Math

Formula

Practice Problems Take Quiz Next Lesson: Derivative: General Definition

General Formula of the Derivative
The following definition is an extension of version 2 for any general point 'x' (instead of the specific value x0 ).

The derivative with respect to x

i f( x)= l m h 0 =
derivative of the function f(x), we can then use the answer to find teh slope at any point without have to keep repeating the formula .

f( x+ h) f( x) This formula tells us the h

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2013-05-03

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2013-05-03