One of the most important calculus concepts to learn is derivation. Here I will show you how to calculate some simple derivatives. The derivative looks like this and can be read as “derivative with respect to x” so if you have a function
and you are supposed to perform
then you are going to be taking the derivative of the function “f” with respect to all variables “x”.
If n is a positive integer, this is your theorem:
let’s apply this to our equation . Our derivative is looks like this to start
where n = 1 because 5x is not raised to any power.
The first derivative will be represented like so:
or
Our equation is now equal to a constant. If you take the derivative of ANY constant, the result is Zero. So here
Let’s make this example a little more realistic, our new equation is
each piece of the equation loses 1 order (
second order), keeping in mind that the 3 was a constant and is now zero.
we can continue all the way to zero.