introduction to deriatives
Subject:
Calculus [1]
Tags:
There are two components to calculus. One is the measure the rate of change at any given point on a curve. This rate of change is called the derivative. The simplest example of a rate of change of a function is the slope of a line. We take this one step further to get the rate of change at a point on a line. The other part of calculus is used to measure the exact area under a curve. This is called the integral. If you wanted to find the area of a semicircle, you could use integration to get the answer.
The two parts; the derivative and the integral are inverse functions of each other. That is, they cancel each other out.
Just as (x2)1/2=x,
the derivative of (integral (x)) = x and
derivative of (integral (f (x)) = f(x).