Home > CALC > Chapter 7 > Lesson 7.1.5 > Problem 7-55
7-55.
Let
Estimate f(−3.1).
Do NOT find an
function. That would be tedious and unnecessary work. This is another way of wording a very familiar problem:
'Givenand a point on , find the tangent line to at and use it to estimate the value of .' Find
. Split the absolute value into a piecewise function and differentiate.
Or, you could recall a special note about the antiderivative of: While you can generally leave it as , it actually equals . Use concavity to determine if your answer to part (a) is an under or over estimate of the actual value of
. Justify your answer. If a function is concave down, all tangent lines will be above the curve.
If a function is concave up, all tangent lines will be below the curve. Sketch this to verify.