The graph of F ( x ) = 4/x2 - 2x - 3 is shown
for which values of X is f ( x ) decreasing

Hi there!

We can find the values of x for which f(x) is decreasing by finding the derivative of f(x):

Taking the derivative gets:

Find the values for which f'(x) < 0 (less than 0, so f(x) decreasing):

0 = -8/x³ - 2

2 = -8/x³

2x³ = -8

x³ = -4

Another critical point is also where the graph has an asymptote (undefined), so at x = 0.

Plug in points into the equation for f'(x) on both sides of each x value to find the intervals for which the graph is less than 0:

f'(1) = -8/1 - 2 = -10 < 0

f'(-1) = -8/(-1) - 2 = 6 > 0

f'(-2) = -8/-8 - 2 = -1 < 0

Thus, the values of x are:

answer: evaluate the objective function at each vertex to determine which - and -values, if any, maximize or minimize the function. example: find the minimum value and maximum value of the objective function f ( x , y ) = 4 x + 5 y , subject to the following constraints

because they could drop even lower..