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Monday, September 29, 2008
HW14
Questions, comments?
What is a Derivative?
Visit our homework site for a file that explains instantaneous rate of change.
"Derivatives" are what mathematicians have decided to use for instantaneous rate of change. If you can find the instantaneous rate of change, then you have actually found the derivative. They mean the same thing.
Our way of approximating the instantaneous rate of change (derivative) is still a valid approach. Another way is to find the slope of the "tangent line". Here is a really cool animation of secants lines turning into a tangent line.
I really don't understand what a derivative is...
ReplyDeleteI read the packet like 5 times but I still don't know what to do...
Yeah! HW 14 is pretty vague about what a derivitive actually IS, and then all of a sudden asks us to find it.
ReplyDeleteWhoa.
As trite as this may seem, I've been reading about deritivitives on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivitives
There are some helpful pictures. It also explains the concept in a few different ways, which is always good!
Plus there's this cool thing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Graph_of_sliding_derivative_line.gif
good finds, nadia.
ReplyDelete"Derivatives" are what mathematicians have decided to use for instantaneous rate of change. If you can find the instantaneous rate of change, then you have actually found the derivative. They mean the same thing.
Our way of approximating the instantaneous rate of change (derivative) is still a valid approach. Another way is to find the slope of the "tangent line". Here is a really cool animation of secants lines turning into a tangent line.
http://www.math.umn.edu/~garrett/qy/Secant.html
Although a bit late, we can pretty much use the same method we've been using to find the derivative, or instantaneous rate of change.
ReplyDelete