First Year:

Basic Differentiation

One of the aims of the first years maths courses is to bring all students within a group to the same level. In first years calculus in particular, differentiation and integration are central notions. Below you will find a few basics rules, to refresh your memory or to help get you started.

(I)

The Idea Behind the Notion of Differentiation

Say you leave Dublin by bus at 10 am on Saturday morning and arrive in Galway at 2.15 pm. The distance between Dublin and Galway is about 260 km, so the bus average speed between Dublin and Galway is
260 260 = 62 .65 km / h . (time of arrival ) (time of departure ) 4.15

km / h stands for kilometre per hour.

Now, what if you want to know the speed of the bus at precisely 12.30 pm? Say you have a function f (t ) that tells you how far the bus is from Dublin at any given time t. Let h represent a small amount of time (eg 0. 1 second). The average speed of the bus between 12.30 pm and (12.30+h) pm is
f (12 .30 ) f (12 .30 + h) f (12 .30 ) f (12 .30 + h) = . (12 .30 + h) 12 .30 h

That would be very close indeed to the speed of the bus at precisely 12.30 pm. If you were able to calculate the average speed of the bus between 12.30 and (12.30+h) pm for arbitrarily small h , you would be able to find the speed of the bus at 12.30 pm. In mathematical terms, it amounts to letting h tends to 0 in the equality above.

(II)

First Principles
d f (x ) of a function f ( x ) dx

Keeping the above in mind, we define the derivative to be

d f ( x + h) f ( x ) f ( x) = lim . h 0 dx h

Where lim means limit as h tends to 0 of. The limit does not necessarily exist but h 0 we will not worry about it for the moment. Lets have a look at an example: f ( x) = 2 x .

We have
f ( x + h) = 2( x + h)

and
f ( x + h) f ( x ) 2( x + h) 2 x 2h = = , h h h

so that
f ( x + h) f ( x ) = 2. h

Since we end up here with a constant, taking the limit as h 0 wont make any difference:
d f ( x + h) f ( x ) f ( x) = lim =2. h 0 dx h

Another example: f ( x ) = x 2 .

This time only the main steps of the proof will be given.
f ( x + h) f ( x) ( x + h) 2 x 2 h 2 + 2 xh = = h h h

and
f ( x + h) f ( x ) = h + 2x . h

Letting h tends to 0 in the equality above, we obtain

d f ( x) = 2 x . dx

One last example:

f ( x) =

This time, well just provide a hint and the final solution. Hint:
a b=

a b

a+ b

)(

a+ b

)=

a b a+ b

Solution:

d 1 f ( x) = . dx 2 x

(III) Basic Rules

If

a is a constant, then
Egs:

da =0. dx
d 3 x = 3x 2 dx

d n x = nx n 1 . dx

and

d 3 x = 3 x 4 . dx

Multiplication by a constant: if Addition rule:

a is a constant, then

d ( af ( x) ) = a d f ( x) . dx dx

d ( f ( x) + g ( x) ) = d f ( x) + d g ( x) . The derivative of a sum dx dx dx

is the sum of the derivatives. Product rule:

d ( f ( x) g ( x) ) = g ( x) d f ( x) + f ( x) d g ( x). dx dx dx

Quotient rule: d f ( x ) = dx g ( x )

g ( x)

d d f ( x) f ( x ) g ( x) dx dx . 2 ( g ( x))

It should be enough to get us started. Here are a few examples:

d 5 x 3 = 15 x 4 . dx d 3 x 5 2 x 3 = 15 x 4 6 x 2 . ( f ( x ) = 3 x 5 and g ( x ) = 2 x 3 in the addition rule) (2) dx d ( x 2 + 1)( x 3 + 2 x) = 2 x( x 3 + 2 x ) + (3x 2 + 2)( x 2 + 1) . (3) dx

(1)

(4)

d x 2 + 1 2 x( x 3 + 2 x) (3 x 2 + 2)( x 2 + 1) = . 2 dx x 3 + 2 x x3 + 2x