Point of Inflection - Differentiation, Business Mathematics & Statistics | Business Mathematics and Statistics - B Com PDF Download

Inflection Points 

An Inflection Point is where a curve changes from Concave upward to Concave downward (or vice versa)

So what is concave upward / downward ?
Concave upward is when the slope increases:

Concave upward is when the slope decreases:

 Here are some more examples:

Finding where ...

So our task is to find where a curve goes from concave upward to concave downward (or vice versa).

Calculus

Derivatives help us!

The derivative of a function gives the slope.

The second derivative tells us if the slope increases or decreases.

• When the second derivative is positive, the function is concave upward.
• When the second derivative is negative, the function is concave downward.

And the inflection point is where it goes from concave upward to concave downward (or vice versa).
Example: y = 5x³ + 2x² − 3x

Let's work out the second derivative:

• The derivative is y' = 15x² + 4x − 3
• The second derivative is y'' = 30x + 4

And 30x + 4 is negative up to x = −4/30 = −2/15, positive from there onwards. So:

f(x) is concave downward up to x = −2/15

f(x) is concave upward from x = −2/15 on

And the inflection point is at x = −2/15
 

A Quick Refresher on Derivatives

In the previous example we took this:

y = 5x³ + 2x² − 3x

and came up with this derivative:

y' = 15x² + 4x − 3

There are rules you can follow to find derivatives, and we used the "Power Rule":

• x³ has a slope of 3x², so 5x³ has a slope of 5(3x²) = 15x²
• x² has a slope of 2x, so 2x² has a slope of 2(2x) = 4x
• The slope of the line 3x is 3
  
   Another example for you:

  Example: y = x³ − 6x² + 12x − 5

  The derivative is: y' = 3x² − 12x + 12

  The second derivative is: y'' = 6x − 12

  And 6x − 12 is negative up to x = 2, positive from there onwards. So:

  f(x) is concave downward up to x = 2

  f(x) is concave upward from x = 2 on

  And the inflection point is at x = 2: