Q. For the function f(x)=x2+2, find the slope of the tangent line at x=−1.Answer:
Calculate Derivative: To find the slope of the tangent line at a specific point on the graph of a function, we need to calculate the derivative of the function. The derivative of a function at a point gives us the slope of the tangent line at that point.For the function f(x)=x2+2, we will find the derivative f′(x).
Find Derivative of f(x): The derivative of f(x)=x2+2 with respect to x is f′(x)=2x. This is because the derivative of x2 is 2x and the derivative of a constant is 0.
Evaluate Derivative at x=−1: Now we need to evaluate the derivative at x=−1 to find the slope of the tangent line at that point.So we substitute x=−1 into the derivative f′(x)=2x to get f′(−1)=2(−1).
Calculate Slope at x=−1: Calculating f′(−1) gives us 2(−1)=−2.Therefore, the slope of the tangent line to the function f(x)=x2+2 at x=−1 is −2.
More problems from Find the slope of a tangent line using limits