CALCULUS: How do I find the Inflection point? http://screencast.com/t/M74UKjB9B5
take the second derivative
and then?
if its negative, its concave down, if its positie its concave up.
or take the first derivative
find when its zero, and check that the left side is the same sign as the right side
Where the second derivative is undefined or 0 we have an inflection point.
But how do I calculate the very inflection point? @ganeshie8 can you give a hand please?
@robtobey @agent0smith
For 15, there won't be an inflection point - the function's second derivative is f'' = 2, which means it's concave up everywhere (since f'' is 2 everywhere). To find where f is decreasing/increasing, you just want the turning point - find this by getting f' and setting f' = 0 and solving for x. Then pick values to the left and right of that x point, and check the sign of f' at those points. + means increasing, - means decreasing. |dw:1368260277690:dw|
Same deal for 16, no inflection point (f'' can never be zero)
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