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Chain Rule

The document introduces the chain rule, which provides a method for finding the derivative of composite functions. The chain rule states that if f(x) and g(x) are differentiable functions, then the derivative of F(x)=f(g(x)) is f'(g(x)) * g'(x). Similarly, if y is a function of u, and u is a function of x, then the derivative of y with respect to x is (dy/du) * (du/dx). The chain rule is necessary for taking derivatives of more complex functions that involve compositions of multiple functions.

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128 views

Chain Rule

The document introduces the chain rule, which provides a method for finding the derivative of composite functions. The chain rule states that if f(x) and g(x) are differentiable functions, then the derivative of F(x)=f(g(x)) is f'(g(x)) * g'(x). Similarly, if y is a function of u, and u is a function of x, then the derivative of y with respect to x is (dy/du) * (du/dx). The chain rule is necessary for taking derivatives of more complex functions that involve compositions of multiple functions.

Uploaded by

KRAZA2092
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Chain Rule

We’ve taken a lot of derivatives over the course of the last few sections. However, if
you look back they have all been functions similar to the following kinds of functions.

These are all fairly simple functions in that wherever the variable appears it is by
itself. What about functions like the following,

None of our rules will work on these functions and yet some of these functions are
closer to the derivatives that we’re liable to run into than the functions in the first set.

Let’s take the first one for example. Back in the section on the definition of the
derivative we actually used the definition to compute this derivative. In that section
we found that,
If we were to just use the power rule on this we would get,

which is not the derivative that we computed using the definition. It is close, but it’s
not the same. So, the power rule alone simply won’t work to get the derivative here.

Let’s keep looking at this function and note that if we define,

then we can write the function as a composition.

and it turns out that it’s actually fairly simple to differentiate a function composition
using the Chain Rule. There are two forms of the chain rule. Here they are.

Chain Rule
Suppose that we have two functions f(x) and g(x) and they are both differentiable.

1. If we define

then the derivative of F(x) is,


2. If we have and

then the derivative of y is,

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