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The second derivative of a function f can be used to determine the concavity of the graph of f. [2] A function whose second derivative is positive is said to be concave up (also referred to as convex), meaning that the tangent line near the point where it touches the function will lie below the graph of the function.
The original notation employed by Gottfried Leibniz is used throughout mathematics. It is particularly common when the equation y = f(x) is regarded as a functional relationship between dependent and independent variables y and x.
The order of the differential equation is the highest order of derivative of the unknown function that appears in the differential equation. For example, an equation containing only first-order derivatives is a first-order differential equation, an equation containing the second-order derivative is a second-order differential equation, and so on.
In an analogous way, one can obtain finite difference approximations to higher order derivatives and differential operators. For example, by using the above central difference formula for f ′(x + h / 2 ) and f ′(x − h / 2 ) and applying a central difference formula for the derivative of f ′ at x, we obtain the central difference approximation of the second derivative of f:
In mathematics, an ordinary differential equation (ODE) is a differential equation (DE) dependent on only a single independent variable.As with any other DE, its unknown(s) consists of one (or more) function(s) and involves the derivatives of those functions. [1]
The derivative of the function at a point is the slope of the line tangent to the curve at the point. The slope of the constant function is 0, because the tangent line to the constant function is horizontal and its angle is 0.
The above arithmetic can be generalized to calculate second order and higher derivatives of multivariate functions. However, the arithmetic rules quickly grow complicated: complexity is quadratic in the highest derivative degree. Instead, truncated Taylor polynomial algebra can be used. The resulting arithmetic, defined on generalized dual ...
If a second-order differential equation has a characteristic equation with complex conjugate roots of the form r 1 = a + bi and r 2 = a − bi, then the general solution is accordingly y(x) = c 1 e (a + bi )x + c 2 e (a − bi )x. By Euler's formula, which states that e iθ = cos θ + i sin θ, this solution can be rewritten as follows: