How To Understand Derivatives: The Quotient Rule, Exponents, and Logar... http://betterexplained.com/articles/how-to-understand-derivatives-the-quo...

How To Understand Derivatives: The Quotient Rule, Exponents, and Logarithms

Last time we tackled derivatives with a machine metaphor. Functions are a machine with an input (x) and output (y) lever. The derivative, dy/dx, is how much output wiggle we get when we wiggle the input:

Now, we can make a bigger machine from smaller ones (h = f + g, h = f * g, etc.). The derivative rules (addition rule, product rule) give us the overall wiggle in terms of the parts. The chain rule is special: we can zoom into a single derivative and rewrite it in terms of another input (like converting miles per hour to miles per minute were converting the time input). And with that recap, lets build our intuition for the advanced derivative rules. Onward!

Division (Quotient Rule)

Ah, the quotient rule the one nobody remembers. Oh, maybe you memorized it with a song like Low dee high, high dee low, but thats not understanding! Its time to visualize the division rule (who says quotient in real life?). The key is to see division as a type of multiplication:

We have a rectangle, we have area, but the sides are f and 1/g. Input x changes off on the side (by dx), so f

1 of 10

1/7/2013 10:20 PM

How To Understand Derivatives: The Quotient Rule, Exponents, and Logar... http://betterexplained.com/articles/how-to-understand-derivatives-the-quo...

and g change (by df and dg) but how does 1/g behave? Chain rule to the rescue! We can wrap up 1/g into a nice, clean variable and then zoom in to see that yes, it has a division inside. So lets pretend 1/g is a separate function, m. Inside function m is a division, but ignore that for a minute. We just want to combine two perspectives: f changes by df, contributing area df * m = df * (1 / g) m changes by dm, contributing area dm * f = ? We turned m into 1/g easily. Fine. But what is dm (how much 1/g changed) in terms of dg (how much g changed)? We want the difference between neighboring values of 1/g: 1/g and 1(g + dg). For example: Whats the difference between 1/4 and 1/3? 1/12 How about 1/5 and 1/4? 1/20 How about 1/6 and 1/5? 1/30 How does this work? We get the common denominator: for 1/3 and 1/4, its 1/12. And the difference between neighbors (like 1/3 and 1/4) will be 1 / common denominator, aka 1 / (x * (x + 1)). See if you can work out why!

If we make our derivative model perfect, and assume theres no difference between neighbors, the +1 goes away and we get:

(This is useful as a general fact: The change from 1/100 to 1/101 = one ten thousandth) The difference is negative, because the new value (1/4) is smaller than the original (1/3). So whats the actual change? g changes by dg, so 1/g becomes 1/(g + dg) The instant rate of change is -1/g^2 [as we saw earlier] The total change = dg * rate, or dg * (-1/g^2) A few gut checks: Why is the derivative negative? As dg increases, the denominator gets larger, the total value gets smaller, so were actually shrinking (1/3 to 1/4 is a shrink of 1/12). Why do we have -1/g^2 * dg and not just -1/g^2? (This confused me at first). Remember, -1/g^2 is the chain rule conversion factor between the g and 1/g scales (like saying 1 hour = 60 minutes). Fine. You still need to multiply by how far you went on the g scale, aka dg! An hour may be 60 minutes, but how many do you want to convert? Where does dm fit in? m is another name for 1/g. dm represents the total change in 1/g, which as we saw, was -1/g^2 * dg. This substitution trick is used all over calculus to help split up gnarly calculations. Oh, it looks like were doing a straight multiplication. Whoops, we zoomed in and saw one variable is actually a

2 of 10

1/7/2013 10:20 PM

How To Understand Derivatives: The Quotient Rule, Exponents, and Logar... http://betterexplained.com/articles/how-to-understand-derivatives-the-quo...

division change perspective to the inner variable, and multiply by the conversion factor. Phew. To convert our dg wiggle into a dm wiggle we do:

And get:

Yay! Now, your overeager textbook may simplify this to:

and it burns! It burns! This simplification hides how the division rule is just a variation of the product rule. Remember, theres still two slivers of area to combine: The f (numerator) sliver grows as expected The g (denominator) sliver is negative (as g increases, the area gets smaller) Using your intuition, you know its the denominator thats contributing the negative change.

Exponents (e^x)
e is my favorite number. It has the property

which means, in English, e changes by 100% of its current amount (read more). The current amount assumes x is the exponent, and we want changes from xs point of view (df/dx). What if

3 of 10

1/7/2013 10:20 PM

How To Understand Derivatives: The Quotient Rule, Exponents, and Logar... http://betterexplained.com/articles/how-to-understand-derivatives-the-quo...

u(x)=x^2 is the exponent, but we still want changes from xs point of view?

Its the chain rule again we want to zoom into u, get to x, and see how a wiggle of dx changes the whole system: x changes by dx u changes by du/dx, or d(x^2)/dx = 2x How does e^u change? Now remember, e^u doesnt know we want changes from xs point of view. e only knows its derivative is 100% of the current amount, which is the exponent u:

The overall change, on a per-x basis is:

This confused me at first. I originally thought the derivative would require us to bring down u. No the derivative of e^foo is e^foo. No more. But if foo is controlled by anything else, then we need to multiply the rate of change by the conversion factor (d(foo)/dx) when we jump into that inner point of view.

Natural Logarithm
The derivative is ln(x) is 1/x. Its usually given as a matter-of-fact. My intuition is to see ln(x) as the time needed to grow to x: ln(10) is the time to grow from 1 to 10, assuming 100% continuous growth Ok, fine. How long does it take to grow to the next value, like 11? (x + dx, where dx = 1) When were at x=10, were growing exponentially at 10 units per second. It takes roughly 1/10 of a second (1/x) to get to the next value. And when were at x=11, it takes 1/11 of a second to get to 12. And so on: the time to the next value is 1/x. The derivative

is mainly a fact to memorize, but it makes sense with a time to grow intepreration.

A Hairy Example: x^x

Time to test our intuition: whats the derivative of x^x?

4 of 10

1/7/2013 10:20 PM

How To Understand Derivatives: The Quotient Rule, Exponents, and Logar... http://betterexplained.com/articles/how-to-understand-derivatives-the-quo...

This is a bad mamma jamma. Theres two approaches: Approach 1: Rewrite everything in terms of e. Oh e, youre so marvelous:

Any exponent (a^b) is really just e in different clothing: [e^ln(a)]^b. Were just asking for the derivative of e^foo, where foo = ln(x) * x. But wait! Since we want the derivative in terms of x, not foo, we need to jump into xs point of view and multiply by d(foo)/dx:

The derivative of ln(x) * x is just a quick application of the product rule. If h=x^x, the final result is:

We wrote e^[ln(x)*x] in its original notation, x^x. Yay! The intuition was rewrite in terms of e and follow the chain rule. Approach 2: Independent Points Of View Remember, deriviatives assume each part of the system works independently. Rather than seeing x^x as a giant glob, assume its made from two interacting functions: u^v. We can then add their individual contributions. Were sneaky though, u and v are the same (u = v = x), but dont let them know! From us point of view, v is just a static power (i.e., if v=3, then its u^3) so we have:

And from vs point of view, u is just some static base (if u=5, we have 5^v). We rewrite into base e, and we get

We add each point of view for the total change:

And the reveal: u = v = x! Theres no conversion factor for this new viewpoint (du/dx = dv/dx = dx/dx = 1), and we have:

5 of 10

1/7/2013 10:20 PM

How To Understand Derivatives: The Quotient Rule, Exponents, and Logar... http://betterexplained.com/articles/how-to-understand-derivatives-the-quo...

Its the same as before! I was pretty excited to approach x^x from a few different angles. By the way, use Wolfram Alpha (like so) to check your work on derivatives (click show steps). Question: If u were more complex, where would we use du/dx? Imagine u was a more complex function like u=x^2 + 3: where would we multiply by du/dx? Lets think about it: du/dx only comes into play from us point of view (when v is changing, u is a static value, and it doesnt matter that u can be further broken down in terms of x). us contribution is

if we wanted the dx point of view, wed include du/dx here:

Were multiplying by the du/dx conversion factor to get things from xs point of view. Similarly, if v were more complex, wed have a dv/dx term when computing vs point of view. Look what happened we figured out the genric d/du and converted it into a more specific d/dx when needed.

Its Easier With Infinitesimals

Separating dy from dx in dy/dx is against the rules of limits, but works great with infinitesimals. You can figure out the derivative rules really quickly: Product rule:

We set df * dg to zero when jumping out of the infinitesimal world and back to our regular number system. Think in terms of How much did g change? How much did f change? and derivatives snap into place much easier. Divide through by dx at the end.

Summary: See the Machine

Our goal is to understand calculus intuition, not memorization. I need a few analogies to get me thinking: Functions are machines, derivatives are the wiggle behavior Derivative rules find the overall wiggle in terms of the wiggles of each part The chain rule zooms into a perspective (hours => minutes) The product rule adds area

6 of 10

1/7/2013 10:20 PM

How To Understand Derivatives: The Quotient Rule, Exponents, and Logar... http://betterexplained.com/articles/how-to-understand-derivatives-the-quo...

The quotient rule adds area (but one area contribution is negative) e changes by 100% of the current amount (d/dx e^x = 100% * e^x) natural log is the time for e^x to reach the next value (x units/sec means 1/x to the next value) With practice, ideas start clicking. Dont worry about getting tripped up I still tried to overuse the chain-rule when working with exponents. Learning is a process! Happy math.

Appendix: Partial Derivatives

Lets say our function depends on two inputs:

The derivative of f can be seen from xs point of view (how does f change with x?) or ys point of view (how does f change with y?). Its the same idea: we have two independent perspectives that we combine for the overall behavior (its like combining the point of view of two Solipsists, who think theyre the only real people in the universe). If x and y depend on the same variable (like t, time), we can write the following:

Its a bit of the chain rule were combining two perspectives, and for each perspective, we dive into its root cause (time). If x and y are otherwise independent, we represent the derivative along each axis in a vector:

This is the gradient, a way to represent From this point, if you travel in the x or y direction, heres how youll change. We combined our 1-dimensional points of view to get an understanding of the entire 2d system. Whoa.

Other Posts In This Series

1. A Gentle Introduction To Learning Calculus 2. Prehistoric Calculus: Discovering Pi 3. Learning Calculus: Overcoming Our Artificial Need for Precision 4. Why Do We Need Limits and Infinitesimals? 5. A Friendly Chat About Whether 0.999... = 1 6. A Calculus Analogy: Integrals as Multiplication 7. Calculus: Building Intuition for the Derivative 8. Understanding Calculus With A Bank Account Metaphor 9. How To Understand Derivatives: The Product, Power & Chain Rules 10. How To Understand Derivatives: The Quotient Rule, Exponents, and Logarithms (This post)
Like 9 Tweet 8 1 6

7 of 10

1/7/2013 10:20 PM

How To Understand Derivatives: The Quotient Rule, Exponents, and Logar... http://betterexplained.com/articles/how-to-understand-derivatives-the-quo...

Share what worked: Aha moments & FAQ

Let's create a living reference for how best to understand this topic.

11 thoughts on How To Understand Derivatives: The Quotient Rule, Exponents, and Logarithms

Gulrez on June 12, 2012 at 9:07 pm said: Kalid u are genius!what will be ur next topic ? I eagerly wait for ur math posts.

kalid on June 12, 2012 at 10:04 pm said: @Gulrez: Hah, thanks for the kind words . Im hoping to do more

on a bunch of math topics, appreciate the support!

Hitoshi on June 20, 2012 at 10:56 am said: As usual, a nice article. By the way, in section Division (Quotient Rule), there is an extra ] at the end of the line . f changes by df, contributing area df * m = df * (1 / g)] Thanks for the great article. H.

8 of 10

1/7/2013 10:20 PM

How To Understand Derivatives: The Quotient Rule, Exponents, and Logar... http://betterexplained.com/articles/how-to-understand-derivatives-the-quo...

kalid on June 20, 2012 at 11:00 am said: @Hitoshi: Thanks for the comment! Just fixed up the article .

Joe on June 24, 2012 at 9:06 pm said: When will Math curriculums begin combining concepts in meaningful ways like this? Calculus classes like to split Power Rule, Quotient Rule, and Chain Rule into discrete sections, when really theyre consequences of the same basic idea. Perhaps its less labor-intensive teaching distinct formulas to be memorized, but its just another reason people hear Calculus and immediately glaze over. And while Im lamentingyour mention of infinitesimals brings up another sore spot of mine. A Calc TA told me how separating dy/dx is against the rules, as you say, and I took it to heart. Imagine poor, confused me a couple semesters later in DiffEq: I thought this was against the rules! The limit-based approach to teaching Calculus needs some serious revision, particularly for non-mathematicians moving into practical fields.

kalid on June 25, 2012 at 12:05 pm said: @Joe: I hear you we slice and dice concepts and miss the cohesive whole. All the calculus rules are just examples of how different subparts can contribute to the whole, but Im only seeing that now, 10+ years after high school. Ugh. And yeah theres so much dont do this, I dont know why, but dont! in math. Why is it against the rules? What are the rules? Limits are a seatbelt introduced to address theoretical concerns many, many years after Calculus was put into use. Learning about seatbelts is fine, but dont dive into them before you explain what a car [i.e., calculus] is!

Kinar

9 of 10

1/7/2013 10:20 PM

How To Understand Derivatives: The Quotient Rule, Exponents, and Logar... http://betterexplained.com/articles/how-to-understand-derivatives-the-quo...

on July 10, 2012 at 4:45 am said: Very informative and great analogy

kalid on July 17, 2012 at 1:18 am said: @Kinar: Thank you!

Anonymous on October 11, 2012 at 12:36 am said: you are a geneous

Alisa on December 26, 2012 at 6:16 pm said: Thanks so much for the explanation. Really help a lot! 1 Q still confused regarding quotient rule (dg part): If we used directly g+dg instead of x+1 in the calculation: 1/(g+dg) 1/g = (g-g+dg) / (g^2+g*dg) = -dg / (g^2 + g*dg) May I ask why is the g*dg ignored or cancelled? Is there an intuitive reasoning for it? Thanks so much in advance.

jacob yedonu on January 7, 2013 at 12:43 am said: hoping to get more example to solve

10 of 10

1/7/2013 10:20 PM