sting695 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Hi PatrickJMT, Ive been given an assignment to find the maximum and minimum of any 'interesting' function. I dont find it hard to solve problems like the one above, and am happy with it. But im having trouble thinking of a "creative" example. Could you help me out! Thanks in advance

patrickJMT (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

hi sleepy! i am happy that my vids helped you out; it is knowing that they are making a difference for at least a few people out there is why i keep posting them. congrats on doing well on your exam! if i ever make it to australia (would really loooove to go), you have to buy me a beer! :)

ineedsomesleep (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Hi Patrick. I'd just like to sincerely thank you for the wonderful range of maths videos. I'm studying engineering at uni over in Australia... Was finding a few concepts hard to grasp in lectures, but they way you explain things makes everything seem a lot more clear. I managed to get 100% in a final exam of a subject with a 35% failure rate, largely due to your explanations ironing out the kinks I had in my understanding. So basically, thank you for explaining things better than my lecturer.

patrickJMT (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

nice! i am only nerdy math geek by day... by night i turn into something cooler!

UhTheeNuh89 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

thanks! i had a cal test today (as you might've guessed after i've been hounding you w/ questions as of late) and i'm still praying to the math gods lol on behalf of all mathematically challenged students, you are our hero! in our eyes, you're right up there with hercules and superman... and the cool christopher-reeve-superman, not the boring, emotionally crippled superman-returns version =)

patrickJMT (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

yes, and you would find there is no solution! you can make two sides of the rectangle arbitrarily large, so long as the other two sides are sufficiently small, which makes the perimeter grow arbitrarily large as well

UhTheeNuh89 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

if the problem were to be reworded so that we were looking for the perimeter of the retangle to be as large as possible (instead of as small as possible) would we solve the problem differently??

chadwickneutron (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

thanks for the clarification buddy

WhiteRice55 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

no, derivative of LN x is 1/x, derivative of 1/x is the same as 1x^-1, derivative of that is -1x^-2 or -1/x^2

chadwickneutron (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

when you differentiate the 2x + 2000/x should the answer be 2+ 2000LNx b/c the derivative of 1/x is LNx