Anti-Differentiation
Introduction to Anti-Differentiation
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Introduction to Anti-Differentiation | Video by ATAR Survival Guide
Anti-Differentiation could be phrased as 'reverse-differentiation' as it simply going the opposite way to differentiation. The above video goes through an introduction to differentiation.
What is Anti-Differentiation?
Anti-Differentiation could be phrased as 'reverse-differentiation' as it simply going the opposite way to differentiation. The above video goes through an introduction to differentiation.
The formula for Anti-Differentiation is provided above and is also in your formula sheet. Just remember, x cannot be a power of -1 as you cannot divide anything by 0.
Wait, What About C?
When we differentiate a constant, it is lost. As a result, when we do anti-differenitation, that constant can be anything, it can 0 all the way to infinity. As a result, we put the constant C to symbolise the possibilities of this number.
See below for an example.
Important: Make sure you put the C, otherwise you might lose marks!
Worked Example: Anti-Differentiation
In the above example, we have to differentiate the following equation:
3x^4 + 6x^2 + 8
The above steps highlight how we achieve the differentiated answer of 12x^3 + 12x.
Notice how in the differentiation we lose the 8. This is important in the below where we anti-differentiate.
As anti-differentiation is the reverse, let's anti-differnetiate our result from the previous step.
The goal here is to anti-differentiate the following equation:
12x^3 + 12x
By increase the power of x by +1 and dividing it by the new number, we get the following answer:
3x^4 + 6x^2
But wait? What about the constant? We have no evidence that it was 8 like the previous step, in a matter of fact it can be anything!
As such, we put the C to represent the constant - in other words, letting the person know this number can be anything!