All Calculus AB Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #1 : Calculate Position, Velocity, And Acceleration
The position of a car is given by the following function:
What is the velocity function of the car?
The velocity function of the car is equal to the first derivative of the position function of the car, and is equal to
The derivative was found using the following rules:
, , ,
Example Question #1 : Contextual Applications Of Derivatives
Let
Find the first and second derivative of the function.
In order to solve for the first and second derivatives, we must use the chain rule.
The chain rule states that if
and
then the derivative is
In order to find the first derivative of the function
we set
and
Because the derivative of the exponential function is the exponential function itself, we get
And differentiating we use the power rule which states
As such
And so
To solve for the second derivative we set
and
Because the derivative of the exponential function is the exponential function itself, we get
And differentiating we use the power rule which states
As such
And so the second derivative becomes
Example Question #1 : Calculate Position, Velocity, And Acceleration
Find the velocity function of the particle if its position is given by the following function:
The velocity function is given by the first derivative of the position function:
and was found using the following rules:
, , ,
Example Question #1 : Calculate Position, Velocity, And Acceleration
Find the first and second derivatives of the function
We must find the first and second derivatives.
We use the properties that
- The derivative of is
- The derivative of is
As such
To find the second derivative we differentiate again and use the product rule which states
Setting
and
we find that
As such
Example Question #2 : Calculate Position, Velocity, And Acceleration
Given the velocity function
where is real number such that , find the acceleration function
.
We can find the acceleration function from the velocity function by taking the derivative:
We can view the function
as the composition of the following functions
so that . This means we use the chain rule
to find the derivative. We have and , so we have
Example Question #2 : Calculate Position, Velocity, And Acceleration
The position of an object is given by the equation . What is its acceleration at ?
If this function gives the position, the first derivative will give its speed and the second derivative will give its acceleration.
Now plug in 2 for t:
Example Question #321 : Calculus Ab
The equation models the position of an object after t seconds. What is its speed after seconds?
If this function gives the position, the first derivative will give its speed.
Plug in for t:
Example Question #3 : Calculate Position, Velocity, And Acceleration
The position of an object is modeled by the equation What is the speed after seconds?
If this function gives the position, the first derivative will give its speed. To differentiate, use the chain rule: . In this case, and . Since and , the first derivative is .
Plug in for t:
Example Question #1 : Calculate Position, Velocity, And Acceleration
A particle's position on the -axis is given by the function from .
When does the particle change direction?
It doesn't change direction within the given bounds
It doesn't change direction within the given bounds
To find when the particle changes direction, we need to find the critical values of . This is done by finding the velocity function, setting it equal to , and solving for
.
Hence .
The solutions to this on the unit circle are , so these are the values of where the particle would normally change direction. However, our given interval is , which does not contain . Hence the particle does not change direction on the given interval.
Example Question #4 : Calculate Position, Velocity, And Acceleration
A particle moves in space with velocity given by
where are constant parameters.
Find the acceleration of the particle when .
To find the acceleration of the particle, we must take the first derivative of the velocity function:
The derivative was found using the following rule:
Now, we evaluate the acceleration function at the given point:
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