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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.
A differentiable function f is (strictly) concave on an interval if and only if its derivative function f ′ is (strictly) monotonically decreasing on that interval, that is, a concave function has a non-increasing (decreasing) slope. [3] [4] Points where concavity changes (between concave and convex) are inflection points. [5]
The higher-order derivative test or general derivative test is able to determine whether a function's critical points are maxima, minima, or points of inflection for a wider variety of functions than the second-order derivative test. As shown below, the second-derivative test is mathematically identical to the special case of n = 1 in the ...
Thus, the second partial derivative test indicates that f(x, y) has saddle points at (0, −1) and (1, −1) and has a local maximum at (,) since = <. At the remaining critical point (0, 0) the second derivative test is insufficient, and one must use higher order tests or other tools to determine the behavior of the function at this point.
For a function f, if its second derivative f″(x) exists at x 0 and x 0 is an inflection point for f, then f″(x 0) = 0, but this condition is not sufficient for having a point of inflection, even if derivatives of any order exist. In this case, one also needs the lowest-order (above the second) non-zero derivative to be of odd order (third ...
The derivative of the function given by () = + + is ′ = + () () + = + (). Here the second term was computed using the chain rule and the third term using the product rule. The known derivatives of the elementary functions , , (), (), and =, as well as the constant , were also used.
The second-derivative test for functions of one and two variables is simpler than the general case. In one variable, the Hessian contains exactly one second derivative; if it is positive, then is a local minimum, and if it is negative, then is a local
Every concave function that is nonnegative on its domain is log-concave. However, the reverse does not necessarily hold. An example is the Gaussian function f(x) = exp(−x 2 /2) which is log-concave since log f(x) = −x 2 /2 is a concave function of x. But f is not concave since the second derivative is positive for | x | > 1: