How Is It That Finding The Limit Of The Difference Quotient As h Approaches 0 Will

Help You Find The Slope Of A Function At Any Given Point?

PriorKnowledge:
Slope Formula:
m=
y
y
2
1
x
x
2 1

Difference
Quotient:

D
Q=
f(x+h)f(x)
h
The slope of a curve at
T
he difference
some point P is equal quotient is a
to the slope of a line
formula that will
tangent to the curve
help find the slope
at point P
of a tangent line.

Tangent:
A line that
touches a
curve at a
single point.
In this graph,
the tangent
line is
red
.

Procedure:

When finding the slope of a line tangent to a curved

line, we can use the example on the right.
What we can start off with is finding two random
points on a curve or function named, P

and
P
1
2.
On the parabola shown, we can name a random value
x
.
That makes the coordinates of point one
(x,f(x))

.
Then, another value,
h

away from
x
,
will have the x

and y coordinates
(x+h,f(x+h))
, which is point two.
With the two points, we can create a line that goes from P

1
to
P2
. When we find the slope of this line, it will give us an

inaccurate estimate of the slope of a line tangent to

P
1,but
what we would get is what everyone knows to be the slope
formula:

m=
y
y
2
1
x
x

2 1
Plugging in the coordinates into the equation, we get

m
=
f(x+h)f(x)
P1P2
(x+h)x
Simplifying, we get:

f(x+h)f(x)

h
This is great because we realize that this is the difference quotient which is crucial
to figuring out our problem.

 As you can see on the right,

weve added another point,
P
3.
Because we have added this
other point to the curve by
making
h
smaller, we can see
that the slope of the new line is
more accurate.
With these diagrams on the right,
you can see that the smaller
h

gets, the more the tangent line

looks like the one from
P
1.

Since we end up with the

differencequotient,

we know this will help find a more

accurate slope of a tangent line.
Finding the limit of the
differencequotient
as
h

approaches 0 is what helps find the slope of the tangent

line so:
The question is, how does the difference quotient
help us find the slope of a line tangent to P

1?

The difference quotient itself is the slope of a line that

goes through random points on a curve.
Since the difference between the two x-components in
both points is
h
, we can shrink
h

until it becomes so
infinitesimally small, the slope of the
P
and
P
might as well be equal to the slope
1
2 line

of the tangent line.

With this, we can now use the
difference quotient
. Since we came up with the
difference quotient formula after using the slope formula,
h
can help us find the slope
of a line tangent to a point.
In the slope formula, we get
h
from the difference between the two x components.
Therefore, if
h

shrinks down, itll get closer to

x
, so, the smaller
hg
ets, the closer the
slope of the line between
P1
and P
2
will resemble the slope of the tangent line
P1
.

Heidy Rompich