Chain Rule: Quantity raised to a power
The
Chain Rule can be applied to find the derivative of a function such as![]()
That is because this function can be considered (from the outside working in) as a quantity raised
to the -7th power. Frequently, it helps to temporarily define a variable, u, to represent the quantity.
Then
Then the function can be written as
, and the task of finding its derivative with respect to x becomes
.
The first stage, finding
can be handled with the
= ![]()
![]()
In order to go further, we need to replace u with its equivalent:
![]()
We can complete the problem by differentiating the remaining terms to get
![]()
![]()
Test Problem: Find the derivative of ![]()