Re: Implicit Derivatives
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg26205] Re: [mg26193] Implicit Derivatives
- From: Jacqueline Zizi <jazi at club-internet.fr>
- Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 02:10:35 -0500 (EST)
- References: <200012010302.WAA11206@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Just write things as simply as they are: Solve[D[3 x y[x] == x^3 + y[x]^3, x], y'[x]] will work. you occult that y is a function of x. You might be used to it but probably your students are not. A very important point of Mathematica is that reflexion on what you are doing helps you programming and teaching and searching. From my point of view it is far from everything else the greatest point that Stephen Wolfram and his team brings us. When you understand that 3 x y == x^3 + y^3 makes no sens as it is, you understand why the solution you point out is cheating to fall back on its feet. Anyway, having 4 new symbols for 4 lines is, from my point of view, a very awkward way of programming. You don't need any new symbol to solve this equation. Just like in Mathematics, "a good definition is a definition that you use a lot" (Jean Bénabou, our French leader in category theory) Jacqueline Zizi ------------------ Tom De Vries wrote: > Hello everyone, > > I am teaching a high school calculus class and we are using Mathematica for > part of the course work. In the book CalcLabs with Mathematica they give > a procedure for finding an Implicit Derivative. Here is an example with a > familiar equation.... > > eq = (3 x y == x^3 + y^3) > > eqNew = eq /. y -> y[x] > > deqNew = D[eqNew, x] > > soln = Solve[deqNew, y'[x]] > > I am wondering if there are other ways to get a similar result to this. > This method makes sense to me but I wondered if there was a more direct > approach? I could not find any information using the Help feature but > perhaps I was just looking in the wrong places? > > Thanks, > > Tom De Vries > Alberta, Canada