Swk, MAT-120, 3.

6 The Chain Rule

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

These are all fairly simple functions. 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 on the definition of the derivative we actually used the definition to compute this
derivative. In that case 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 of this function.

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

then we can write the function as a composition.

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

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Each of these forms have their uses, however we will work mostly with the first form.
Use the Chain Rule to differentiate .

Solution We’ve already identified the two functions that we needed for the composition, but let’s
write them back down anyway and take their derivatives.

So, using the chain rule we get,

And this is what we got using the definition of the derivative.

There is a quick and easy way of remembering the chain rule that doesn’t require us to think in terms
of function composition. Let’s take the function from the previous example and rewrite it slightly.

This function has an “inside function” and an “outside function”. The outside function is the
square root or the exponent of depending on how you want to think of it and the inside

function is the stuff that we’re taking the square root of or raising to the , again depending on
how you want to look at it. The derivative is then,

In general this is how we think of the chain rule. We identify the “inside function” and the
“outside function”. We then differentiate the outside function leaving the inside function alone and
multiply all of this by the derivative of the inside function.
If we define then the derivative of F(x) in its general form is,

We can always identify the “outside function” in the examples below by asking our selves how we
would evaluate the function. For instance in the R(z) case if we were to ask ourselves what R(2) is
we would first evaluate the stuff under the radical and then finally take the square root of this result.
The square root is the last operation that we perform in the evaluation and this is also the outside
function. The outside function will always be the last operation you would perform if you were
going to evaluate the function.

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Differentiate

The outside function is the exponent and the inside is g(x).

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 Swk, MAT-120, 3.6 The Chain Rule

Let’s take a look at some more examples.

Differentiate each of the following.

(a) (b) (c) (d)

Solution (a) It looks like the outside function is the sine and the inside function is 3x2+x. The
derivative is then.

Or,

(b) In this case the outside function is the exponent of 50 and the inside function is all the stuff on
the inside of the parenthesis. The derivative is then.

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 Swk, MAT-120, 3.6 The Chain Rule
(c) In this case the outside function is the secant and the inside is the 1-5x.

In this case the derivative of the outside function is sec(x)tan(x). However, since we leave the inside
function alone we don’t get x’s in both. Instead we get 1-5x in both.
(d) There are two points to this problem. First, there are two terms and each will require a different
application of the chain rule. That will often be the case. Second, we need to be very careful in
choosing the outside and inside function for each term. Recall that the first term can actually be
written as,

So, in the first term the outside function is the exponent of 4 and the inside function is the cosine.
In the second term it’s exactly the opposite. In the second term the outside function is the cosine and
the inside function is t4. Here’s the derivative for this function.

There are a couple of general formulas that we can get from some special cases of the chain rule.
Let’s take a quick look at those.

Differentiate

Solution In this case we will be using the chain rule in concert with the quotient rule.

These tend to be a little messy. Notice that when we go to simplify that we’ll be able to a fair
amount of factoring in the numerator.

Upon factoring, notice that we can cancel some of the terms in the numerator against the
denominator. So even though the initial chain rule was fairly messy the final answer is significantly
simpler because of the factoring. The point of this last example is to not forget the other derivative
rules that we’ve got. Most of the examples in this section won’t involve the product rule or the
quotient rule to make the problems a little shorter. However, in practice they will often be in the
same problem.
Differentiate

f ( y )  2 y  (3 y  4 y 2 ) 3
Solution We’re going to be a little more careful in this problem than we were in the previous
ones. The reason will be quickly apparent. We’ll not put as many words into this example, but we’re
still going to be careful with this derivative.

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 Swk, MAT-120, 3.6 The Chain Rule
As with the first example the second term of the inside function required the chain rule to
differentiate it. Also note that again we need to be careful when multiplying by the derivative of the
second term.
Find all points (x, y) on the graph of with tangent lines parallel to the line y + x = 12 .

SOLUTION : Find all points (x, y) on the graph of with tangent lines parallel to the line y + x =
12 . The slope of the given line y = 12-x is y'=-1 . Thus, we need to find all values x in the domain of f which
satisfy f'(x)=-1 . The derivative of f is

If then . It follows that

iff iff
iff iff x(9x + 8) = 0 . Thus, x = 0 or 9x + 8 = 0 so that x = 0 or .

But x=0 cannot be a solution since . Therefore, the only solution is the point

and

Find an equation of the line tangent to the graph of at x=-1 .

Solution: If x= -1 then so that the tangent line

passes through the point (-1, 0 ) . The slope of the tangent line follows from the derivative
.
The slope of the line tangent to the graph at x = -1 is
= -2 .
Thus, an equation of the tangent line is y - 0 = -2 (x - (-1) ) or y = -2x - 2 .

Assume that h(x) = f( g(x) ) , where both f and g are differentiable functions. If g(-1)=2, g'(-1)=3, and
f'(2)=-4 , what is the value of h'(-1) ?

SOLUTION : Recall that the chain rule states that . Thus,

so that
.

Assume that , where f is a differentiable function. If and , determine

an equation of the line tangent to the graph of h at x=0 .

SOLUTION: The outer layer of this function is ``the third power'' and the inner layer is f(x) . The chain rule
gives us that the derivative of h is
.
Thus, the slope of the line tangent to the graph of h at x=0 is
.
This line passes through the point . Using the point-slope form of
a line, an equation of this tangent line is
or .

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Find an equation of the line tangent to the graph of at .

SOLUTION : If then so that the tangent line

passes through the point . The slope of the tangent line follows from the derivative of y . Then

.
There is no need to simpliy this derivative. Just let in the derivative equation. Thus, the slope of the line
tangent to the graph at is m = y'

.
Thus, an equation of the tangent line is

If f and g are both differentiable and , equals to

We know that

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Exercise-3.6, Assignment Problems # 1 – 40 (Odd), 43 – 58 (Odd), 72, 73.

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