WLB 10102/T/03

Chap 1 Advanced Differentiation

a) What is the temperature of the rod after

11 seconds?

Tutorial 3
Application of Differentiation
1. Ecologist estimate that when the population
of a certain city is x thousand persons, the
average level L of carbon monoxide in the
air above the city will be L ppm (parts per
million), where L 10 0.4 x 0.0001x 2 .
The population of the city is estimated to be
x 752 23t 0.5t 2 thousand persons t
years from the present.
a) Find the rate of change of carbon
monoxide with respect to the population
of the city.
b) Find the time rate of change of the
population when t 2.
c) How fast (with respect to time) is the
carbon monoxide level changing at time
t 2?

2. When a rod of molten steel with

atemperature of 1800 o F is placed in a
large vat of water at temperature 60 o F , the
temperature of the rod after t seconds is

b) At what rate is the temperature of the

rod changing after 6 seconds?
c) Approximately when is the temperature
of the rod 200 degrees?
d) Approximately when is the rod cooling
at the rate of 200 degrees per second?
3. A manufacturer plans to decrease the
amount of sulfur dioxide escaping from its
smokestacks. The estimated cost-benefit
function is
f ( x)

3x
,
105 x

0 x 100

where f (x ) is the cost in millions of

dollars for eliminating x percent of the
total sulfur dioxide. (See Fig. 2).
Find the value of x at which the rate of
increase of the cost-benefit function is 1.4
million dollars per unit. (Each unit is 1
percentage point increase in pollutant
removed.)

f (t ) 60(1 29e 1.5t )

Degrees Fahrenheit. The graph of this

function is shown in Fig. 1.

Figure 1

Mohd Nasir Mahmud@UniKL MICET

4. The monthly demand equation for an

electric utility company is estimated to be
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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

WLB 10102/T/03

Chap 1 Advanced Differentiation

p 60 (10 5 ) x,

where p is measured in dollars and x is

measured in thousands of kilowatt-hours.
The utility has fixed costs of $7,000,000 per
month and variable costs of $30 per 1000
kilowatt-hours of electricity generated, so
that the cost function is
C ( x ) 7.10 6 30 x.

a) Find the value of x and the

corresponding price for 1000 kilowatthours that maximize the utilitys profit.

Figure 3

6. Under certain conditions (called adiabatic

expansion) the pressure P and volume V
of a gas such as oxygen satisfy the equation

b) Suppose that rising fuel costs increase

the utilitys variable costs from $30 to
$40 so that its new cost function is

P 5V 7 k ,

where k is a constant.
C1 ( x) 7.10 40 x.
Should the utility pass all this increase
of $10 per thousand kilowatt-hours on to
consumers? Explain your answer.
6

5. The cost function for a manufacturer is

C (x ) dollars, where x is the number of
units of goods produced and C , C , and
C are the functions given in Figure 3.

Suppose that at some moment the volume of

the gas is 4 liters, the pressure is 200 units,
and the pressure is increasing at the rate of 5
units per second.
Find the (time) rate at which the volume is
changing.

a) What is the cost of manufacturing 60

units of goods?
b) What is the marginal cost when 40 units
of goods are manufactured?
c) At what level of production is the cost
$1200?
d) At what level(s) of production is the
marginal cost $22.50?

The positive thinker:

sees the invisible
feels the intangible, and
achieves the impossible

e) At what level of production does the

marginal cost have the least value? What
is the marginal cost at this level of
production?

Mohd Nasir Mahmud@UniKL MICET

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008