Differentiating Functions with xn
Differentiating xn
You can use the definition of an derivative to find the expression of the derivative of xn, where n is a real number.
To differentiate xn or axn, where a is a constant, use the following formulas:
Example 1:
Differentiating two or more terms
To differentiate expressions with more than 1 term, you have to deal with each term seperately.
Let's begin with quadratics:
We can easily break down and differentiate any other polynomial (or even any other expression) term by term this way. In general, if you are to differentiate any function with 2 or more terms, you can use the following steps:
Example 2:
Practice Question:
