AP Calculus AB

Antiderivatives,
Differential Equations,
and Slope Fields
 Review
• Consider the equation y  x 2

dy
• Find  2x Solution
dx
 Antiderivatives
• What is an inverse operation?

• Examples include:
 Addition and subtraction
 Multiplication and division
 Exponents and logarithms
 Antiderivatives
• Differentiation also has an inverse…

antidefferentiation
 Antiderivatives
• Consider the function F whose derivative is given
by f  x   5x .
4

• What is F  x ? F  x  x 5 Solution

• We say that F  x  is an antiderivative of f  x .

 Antiderivatives
 
• Notice that we say F x is an antiderivative and
not the antiderivative. Why?

 
• Since F x is an antiderivative of f  x , we can
 
say that F ' x  f x .  
G  x   x  3 and H  x   x  2, find
5 5
• If

g  x  and h x  .
 Differential Equations
dy
• Recall the earlier equation  2 x.
dx
• This is called a differential equation and could
also be written as dy  2 xdx .

• We can think of solving a differential equation

as being similar to solving any other equation.
 Differential Equations
• Trying to find y as a function of x

• Can only find indefinite solutions

 Differential Equations
• There are two basic steps to follow:

1. Isolate the differential

2. Invert both sides…in other words, find
the antiderivative
 Differential Equations
• Since we are only finding indefinite
solutions, we must indicate the ambiguity
of the constant.
• Normally, this is done through using a
letter to represent any constant.
Generally, we use C.
 Differential Equations
dy
• Solve  2x
dx
y  x2  C Solution
 Slope Fields
• Consider the following:
HippoCampus
 Slope Fields
• A slope field shows the general “flow” of a
differential equation’s solution.

• Often, slope fields are used in lieu of

actually solving differential equations.
 Slope Fields
• To construct a slope field, start with a differential
equation. For simplicity’s sake we’ll use
dy  2Fields
Slope xdx
• Rather than solving the differential equation,
we’ll construct a slope field
• Pick points in the coordinate plane
• Plug in the x and y values
• The result is the slope of the tangent line at that
point
 Slope Fields
• Notice that since there is no y in our equation,
horizontal rows all contain parallel segments.
The same would be true for vertical columns if
there were no x.

dy
• Construct a slope field for  x  y.
dx