Differentiation

Maple knows all the rules of differentiation and can differentiate any expression, no matter how complex it is. Using Maple to check your work (or do your work!) in problem sets where calculus is required is a major purpose of Maple. Differentiation can be done using a couple different approaches.

Enter the diff(expr, x) command and the expression expr will be differentiated with respect to the variable x or whatever variable you specified. If you want the second derivative, use this form diff(expr, x$2).

Maple also understands the prime notation that is found in most Calculus books. Follow the expression or name of an expression with the prime (single quote ') character and Maple computes and returns the derivative of the expression.

Exams (and quizzes and homeworks) in this course expect that you know, understand, and use the diff command.