How do you find the relative extrema for f(x) =2x- 3x^(2/3) +2 on the interval [-1,3]?

1 Answer
May 25, 2015

Find and test the critical numbers for f.

f(x) =2x- 3x^(2/3) +2

Critical numbers for f are values for x that are:

  1. In the domain of f, and

  2. at which f'(x) = 0 or f'(x) does not exist.

(This is a wonderful example of why you cannot ignore the second kind of critical numbers.)

For this function, we have:

f'(x) = 2-2x^(-1/3) = 2(1-x^(-1/3)) = 2((root(3)x -1)/root(3)x)

f'(x) = 0 color(white)"sssssssss" f'(x) does not exist

x=1 color(white)"ssssssssssssss" x =0

Using the first derivative we find that f is

increasing on (-oo, 0) (Yes, I know the domain has been restricted, but it is not necessary.)

decreasing on #(0,1) so

f(0) = 2 is a relative maximum.

f is increasing on #(1,oo), so

f(1) = 1 is a relative minimum.