Question

find the extreme values of the function and where they occur

Answer 1

At x = 0, the function is 1... this is the least value of the function (not sure if that counts as an "extreme value" ?)

For any x larger than 1, the argument of the square root will be negative, so f would not be real.

As x approaches 1 from the left and -1 from the right, the denominator "blows up" to positive infinity, but again, I don't know if that counts as an "extreme value" (although it doesn't get much more extreme than infinity...)

Is this what the problem is getting at? I might be missing the question.

Answer 2

i need to find the critical point

Answer 3

The critical point is where the first derivative is zero. Can you take the derivative of the function?

I know it will have to occur at x = 0, but that's because I plotted the function to see what it looks like. The correct way would be to find the first derivative, f'(x), and then set that equal to 0 to find the critical point.