What we are being asked here is to simply minimize distance. Also, note that we can write f ( x ) = √ x as y = √ x . Now, what is this "distance?" How do we find it? Well, if you think back to Algebra I or Geometry, you'll remember that the distance between two points ( x 1 , y 1 ) and ( x 2 , y 2 ) is given by: √ ( y 2 − y 1 ) 2 + ( x 2 − x 1 ) 2 . For example, the distance between the points ( 4 , 0 ) and ( 0 , 3 ) would be: √ ( 3 − 0 ) 2 + ( 4 − 0 ) 2 = √ 9 + 16 = √ 25 = 5 Ok, so what is ( x 1 , y 1 ) and ( x 2 , y 2 ) in our example? ( x 1 , y 1 ) is simple - it's just the point given in the problem, ( 4 , 0 ) . Because we don't know what x 2 is, we'll just call it x for now. As for y 2 , we don't know that either; and since y = √ x , we'll call it √ x . Our formula then becomes: √ ( √ x − 0 ) 2 + ( x − 4 ) 2 = √ ( √ x 2 ) + x 2 − 8 x + 16 = √ x + x 2 − 8 x + 16 = √ x 2 − 7 x + 16 We are being asked to minimize this distance, which we'll call s to make the following calculations easier. To minimize something, we have to take its derivative, so let's start there: s = √ x 2 − 7 x + 16 = ( x 2 − 7 x + 16 ) 1 2
d s d x = ( 2 x − 7 ) ⋅ 1 2 ( x 2 − 7 x + 16 ) 1 2 → Using power rule and chain rule d s d x = 2 x − 7 2 √ x 2 − 7 x + 16 Now we set this equal to 0 and solve for x : 0 = 2 x − 7 2 √ x 2 − 7 x + 16 0 = 2 x − 7 x = 7 2 This is known as the critical value, and it represents the x -value for which the function is minimized. All we need to do now is find the corresponding y -value, using the definition of y : y = √ x . Substituing 7 2 for x : y = √ 7 2
y ≈ 1.87 And voila, the y -value. We can now say that the minimum distance between f ( x ) = √ x and the point ( 4 , 0 ) (the place where these two are closest) occurs at ( 7 2 , 1.87 ) . For a little extra fun, we can use the distance formula to see what the actual distance between the points is: s = √ ( 1.87 − 0 ) 2 + ( 7 2 − 4 ) 2 ≈ 1.8 units
You can use this phrase to help you... •King •Henry •Drinks •Many cups of •Chocolate •Milk Which also stands for the metric units... •Kilometer •Hectometer •Decameters •Meter •Centimeter •Millimeter And whenever you need to convert from 1 unit to the next, just jump back and forth on the system