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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.
Such equations give rise to the terminology found in some texts wherein the derivative is referred to as the "differential coefficient" (i.e., the coefficient of dx). Some authors and journals set the differential symbol d in roman type instead of italic: dx. The ISO/IEC 80000 scientific style guide recommends this style.
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:
The expression may also be thought of as the application of the differential operator d / dx (again, a single symbol) to y, regarded as a function of x. This operator is written D in Euler's notation. Leibniz did not use this form, but his use of the symbol d corresponds fairly closely to this modern concept.
It is a solution of a second-order linear ordinary differential equation (ODE). Every second-order linear ODE with three regular singular points can be transformed into this equation. For systematic lists of some of the many thousands of published identities involving the hypergeometric function, see the reference works by Erdélyi et al. (1953 ...
In calculus, the differential represents the principal part of the change in a function = with respect to changes in the independent variable. The differential is defined by = ′ (), where ′ is the derivative of f with respect to , and is an additional real variable (so that is a function of and ).
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: