How do you find concavity, inflection points, and min/max points for the function: #f(x)=x(x^2+1)# defined on the interval [–5,4]?
1 Answer
Take the first and second derivative and their zeros.
Explanation:
First, look at the graph so you can get an idea of what you are working with.
graph{x(x^2+1) [-10, 10, -5, 5]}
At first glance, there don't appear to be any max or min on the function. The graph looks concave down to the left and up on the right. Just to be sure, lets do the math. We need to take the first derivative, and that will be easier once we multiply the
Since
This function is linear, so our work becomes pretty easy. The inflection point is
min:
max:
inflection:
concave down:
concave up:
