Professional Documents
Culture Documents
= cos(4x + 2)*
*Note: We never alter whatever is inside the outer function (i.e. 4x + 2).
Inner derivative
=4
= 2 (sec(x 2 ))
Middle derivative
= sec(x 2 + x)tan(x 2 + x)
Inner derivative
= 2x + 1
Now we multiply them all together and get: (4x + 2)sec 2 (x 2 + x)tan(x 2 + x)
And thats your derivative of the original function. Hooray!
Now things get tricky. Implicit differentiation. Sounds scary, right? WRONG. Its terrifying. I mean, just
looking up when to use implicit differentiation gave me a headache. The simplest way to define implicit
differentiation (and make it less menacing) is as an extension of the chain rule, applied to implicit
functions. Hold up, whats an implicit function? Its basically a function where y is actively involved. (i.e.
not just sitting around on the other side of the =). The best example of this is your basic circle:
2 + 2 = 1
See? Our lovely y variable isnt being lazy in this equation. Now of course, we could isolate y and set it
equal to1 , but that makes more work for us. Implicit differentiation is much faster.
Before we begin, lets ponder a moment on what the derivative of y is. Never thought about it, huh? Well,
lets use an example to explain.
y=x+1
So, we know that the derivative of this function is this:
=1
Woah, woah, woah. Whered that weird fraction come from? Oh right its the symbol for the derivative of
the functionbut guess what is also is? Thats right, the derivative of y!
Okay, youll be much more excited once you learn its application.
2 + 2 = 1
Lets get to work.
2y + 2x = 0
So, first we took the derivative of 2 . We have to use the chain rule in this case, because we know that y is
a function by itself (i.e. when we isolated it earlier). The outer function is ( )2, and the inner is y. So we get
=-
x
y
As for second derivatives with implicit differentiation, things get a bit messier. Taking the second
derivative of functions is fairly simple. You just take the derivative of the derivative. Like so:
y = 2
y = 2x
y = 2
Easy, right? Right! Until you get to implicit differentiation
To take the second derivative of an implicit function you need to basically apply the same rules as before,
2
only now, when youre left with a 2 (the notation for a second derivative) and a , you just need to plug
in the first derivative for and simplify! Or not simplifybecause that stuff is crazy.
You remember the first derivative of our circle, right? Good. Because I didnt want to do it again.
=-
= Holy crap why did I pick an example problem with a quotient rule?? Ugh. *
*
()
(1)
So now we just plug in our original derivative for and then cry a little because of how scary it looks.
()
Now we get a big fancy list of all of the inverse trig function derivatives! Yay!
sin1 = 12
cos 1 = - 12
tan1 =
1
1+2
1
cot 1 = - 1+2
1
sec 1 = ||2
csc 1 = - ||2
( ) =
( ) = * ln
(ln ) =
(log ) = ln
Now, this may seem unrelated, but lets list some quick log rules:
log() = log + log
Which simplifies to
= (1 + ln )
= (1 + ln )
+ ln