Re: Problems with differentiating Piecewise functions
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg86938] Re: Problems with differentiating Piecewise functions
- From: Szabolcs Horvát <szhorvat at gmail.com>
- Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 08:14:39 -0500 (EST)
- Organization: University of Bergen
- References: <fsd6ph$9hb$1@smc.vnet.net>
hlovatt wrote: > If I set up a piecewise function and differentiate it: > > In[112]:= pw1 = Piecewise[{{x^2, x <= 0}, {x, x > 0}}] > > Out[112]= \[Piecewise] { > {x^2, x <= 0}, > {x, x > 0} > } > > In[113]:= pw1 /. x -> 0 > > Out[113]= 0 > > In[114]:= pw1d = D[pw1, x] > > Out[114]= \[Piecewise] { > {2 x, x < 0}, > {1, x > 0}, > {Indeterminate, \!\(\* > TagBox["True", > "PiecewiseDefault", > AutoDelete->False, > DeletionWarning->True]\)} > } > > In[115]:= pw1d /. x -> 0 > > Out[115]= Indeterminate > > Then at the joins between the pieces I get Indeterminate values, > because the limit x <= 0 has become x < 0 after differentiation. Does > anyone know a solution to this problem? Mathematically it makes sense. The derivative cannot be defined in that point. You could manually replace Indeterminate with whichever value you need there: D[pw1, x] /. Indeterminate -> a or D[pw1, x] /. Indeterminate -> 0