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Fermat's theorem is central to the calculus method of determining maxima and minima: in one dimension, one can find extrema by simply computing the stationary points (by computing the zeros of the derivative), the non-differentiable points, and the boundary points, and then investigating this set to determine the extrema.
If the domain X is a metric space, then f is said to have a local (or relative) maximum point at the point x ∗, if there exists some ε > 0 such that f(x ∗) ≥ f(x) for all x in X within distance ε of x ∗. Similarly, the function has a local minimum point at x ∗, if f(x ∗) ≤ f(x) for all x in X within distance ε of x ∗.
By Fermat's theorem, all local maxima and minima of a continuous function occur at critical points. Therefore, to find the local maxima and minima of a differentiable function, it suffices, theoretically, to compute the zeros of the gradient and the eigenvalues of the Hessian matrix at these zeros.
The stationary points are the red circles. In this graph, they are all relative maxima or relative minima. The blue squares are inflection points.. In mathematics, particularly in calculus, a stationary point of a differentiable function of one variable is a point on the graph of the function where the function's derivative is zero.
In conjunction with the extreme value theorem, it can be used to find the absolute maximum and minimum of a real-valued function defined on a closed and bounded interval. In conjunction with other information such as concavity, inflection points, and asymptotes, it can be used to sketch the graph of a function.
In mathematical optimization, the method of Lagrange multipliers is a strategy for finding the local maxima and minima of a function subject to equation constraints (i.e., subject to the condition that one or more equations have to be satisfied exactly by the chosen values of the variables). [1]
Finding the extrema of functionals is similar to finding the maxima and minima of functions. The maxima and minima of a function may be located by finding the points where its derivative vanishes (i.e., is equal to zero). The extrema of functionals may be obtained by finding functions for which the functional derivative is equal to
For example, the interpolant above has a local maximum at x ≈ 1.566, f(x) ≈ 1.003 and a local minimum at x ≈ 4.708, f(x) ≈ −1.003. However, these maxima and minima may exceed the theoretical range of the function; for example, a function that is always positive may have an interpolant with negative values, and whose inverse therefore ...