TI-83/83 Plus: Finding x-intercepts of

a Second Derivative Graph

The following pages contain some instructions on the usage of the TI-83/83 Plus
graphing calculator.
The example used below is taken out of the text titled Calculus Concepts - An Informal
Approach to the Mathematics of Change, 1st Edition by LaTorre, Kenelly, Fetta, and et
al.
Example#1 Post-secondary Education p. 292: Consider the following model for the
percentage of students graduating from high school in South Carolina from 1982 through
1990 who entered post-secondary institutions
f (x ) = 0.1057 x 3 + 1.355 x 2 3.672 x + 50.792 percent where x=0 in 1982
Find the inflection point of the model.
Your calculator can be very helpful in checking your analytical work when finding the
inflection points. When you are not required to obtain an analytical solution using
derivatives or when only an approximation to the exact answer is required, the following
procedure can be implemented.
Press 4 to go into the function Editor menu. Enter the above equation into your
calculator by \Y1 =. Be sure to use press for the leading negative sign as opposed to
subtraction, which is . When you have finished entering the equation of the model,
your screen should look like the screen on the left given below.

Press h to move the cursor down by \Y2 =. Press o to go into the MATH menu.
Press h several times to move the cursor down by 8:nDeriv(. At this point, your screen
should look like the screen in the middle given above. This particular function of the
calculator uses the symmetric difference quotient to calculate the slope of a secant line,
which in turn can be used as an approximate value for the slope of the tangent line at a
given point on a function.
Press to select 8:nDeriv( and paste it onto the function Editor by \Y2 =. At this
point, your screen should look like the screen on the right given above.
The Nderiv function takes three arguments, separated by commas. The first one is the
location of the function in the function Editor whose derivative is needed. To get Y1
pasted by nDeriv( as the first argument, first press r to go into the VARS menu.
Press a to scroll over to the VARS Y-VARS menu. Press to select 1:Function
from the VARS Y-VARS menu. Press to select 1:Y1 from the FUNCTION menu

and paste it by nDeriv( as the first argument. Press . Press f for the generic input
variable x. Press . Press f again to obtain an approximation for the derivative at
every x pixel between the Xmin and Xmax values. Press . At this point, your screen
should look like the screen on the left given below.

Press S to select the WINDOW menu. The appropriate WINDOW menu settings
used for this model are displayed in the middle given above. Press V to see the
graph of the function and the graph of the numerical derivative of the function. At this
point, your screen should look like the screen on the right given above.
Press 4 to go into the function Editor menu. Press h three times to move the cursor
down by \Y2 =. Press _ to move the blinking cursor over to the equal sign next to \Y2 in
the function Editor. Press to turn off the function in \Y2 location in the function
Editor.
At this point, the derivative of the calculators first derivative needs to be placed into
function editor by \Y3 =. Press h to move the cursor down by \Y3 =. Press a. Press
o to go into the MATH menu. Press h several times to move the cursor down by
8:nDeriv(. Press to select 8:nDeriv( and paste it onto the function Editor by \Y3 =.
To get Y2 pasted by nDeriv( as the first argument, first press r to go into the VARS
menu. Press a to scroll over to the VARS Y-VARS menu. Press to select
1:Function from the VARS Y-VARS menu. Press h to move the cursor down by 2:Y2.
Press to select 2:Y2 from the FUNCTION menu and paste it by nDeriv( as the
first argument. Press . Press f for the generic input variable x. Press . Press
f again to obtain an approximation for the derivative of the first derivative at every
x pixel between the Xmin and Xmax values defined by the above WINDOW settings.
At this point, your screen should look like the screen on the left given below.

Press V to see the graph of the function and the graph of the numerical derivative of
the calculators first derivative. At this point, your screen should look like the screen on
the right given above. The graph of the calculators numerical second derivative of the
function takes longer to produce because the calculator approximates the derivative of the
derivative at each pixel point before graphing.

An inflection point is a point of greatest or least slope. One can easily find an inflection
point of a function by finding where the first derivative of the function has a maximum or
minimum value. The first derivative graph seems to reach a maximum at about x=4. The
second derivative graph seems to cross the x-axis at about x=4 also. It seems that the xvalue of the maximum of the first derivative graph (i.e., the slope graph) is the x-axis
crossing of the second derivative graph.
The x-axis crossing of the second derivative graph can be found by using the CALC
menu. To accomplish this task, first press 4 to go into the function Editor menu. Press
_ to move the blinking cursor over to the equal sign next to \Y1 in the function Editor.
Press to turn off the function in \Y1 location in the function Editor. Now, the only
function that remains turned on in the function Editor menu is in \Y3, which is the second
derivative function. Press \ and U to go to the CALC menu. Press h to move the
cursor down to 2:zero. Press to select this option from the CALCULATE menu.
Press _ to move the cursor anywhere to the left of where the second derivative graph
crosses the x-axis. At this point, your screen should look like the screen on the left given
below.

Press to mark the location of the left bound. The calculator will prompt you for the
right bound. Press a to move the cursor anywhere to the right of where the graph crosses
the x-axis. At this point, your screen should look like the screen in the middle given
above. Press to mark the location of the right bound. At this point, your screen
should look like the screen on the right given above. Notice that the calculator has
marked the interval between the left and right bounds with two small triangles at the top
of the screen. The calculator is also prompting you for a guess value for the x-axis
crossing of the second derivative graph. Any value between the two small triangles will
do. Press _ to move the cursor somewhere between the left and right bounds. Press
to see the location of the x-axis crossing of the second derivative graph displayed
by the calculator as x=4.2730999.
At this point, your screen should look like the screen given below.

The second derivative is zero when x 4.27 years after 1982. The output from the function is
f (4.27 ) 51.6% and the rate of change at that point is f (4.27 ) 2.1 percentage points per
year.
Copyright 2001 by Mike Turegun