Apparently easy Chain Rule Problem

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Homework Statement



F(s) = ( s - \frac{1}{s^2})3

I have to calculate the derivative of this using chain rule everytime i try i get something way different than in the back of the book... my first move is

3( s - \frac{1}{s^2})2 X ( 1 + \frac{2}{s^3})

is this correct? then expand out from here? maybe there's a problem when i expand.. i don't know but any help would be great thanks...
 
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hi rambo5330! :smile:
rambo5330 said:
F(s) = ( s - \frac{1}{s^2})3

I have to calculate the derivative of this using chain rule everytime i try i get something way different than in the back of the book... my first move is

3( s - \frac{1}{s^2})2 X ( 1 + \frac{2}{s^3})

looks ok to me …

what do you get when you expand it?
 
Yeah,

\frac{d}{ds}F(s) = 3(s - \frac{1}{s^2})^2 (1 + \frac{2}{s^3})

Seems fine.

Maybe the author expanded the expression, what answer do you have in the back of the book?

_________________

EDIT: Listen, I've expanded it and what I've found was something like this

\frac{d}{ds}F(s) = 3(\frac{s^3-1}{s^2})^2(\frac{s^3 +2}{s^3}) \Rightarrow 3(\frac{(s^3-1)^2}{s^4})(\frac{s^3 +2}{s^3}) = \frac{3}{s^7}((s^3-1)^2(s^3+2))
 
Last edited:
sorry for late response...

the answer in the text is.

\frac{d}{ds}F(s) = \frac{3( s^9 - 3s^3 + 2)}{s^7}

when i expand i end up with something similar to yours but i obviously made an error somewhere I'm going to try again right now... i really don't see how they are arriving at this solution
 
so i finally arrived at the solution thanks a bunch.. i justt needed to know if i was wrong right off the bat or if it was in my expansion and you jeez.. after awhile of work i found where i made my error.. and i arrived at

\frac{d}{ds}F(s) = 3(s^2 - \frac{3}{s^4} + \frac{2}{s^7})

which in then became clear that the book cleared the fractions by multiplying/dividing by s7

pain in the butt
 
There are two things I don't understand about this problem. First, when finding the nth root of a number, there should in theory be n solutions. However, the formula produces n+1 roots. Here is how. The first root is simply ##\left(r\right)^{\left(\frac{1}{n}\right)}##. Then you multiply this first root by n additional expressions given by the formula, as you go through k=0,1,...n-1. So you end up with n+1 roots, which cannot be correct. Let me illustrate what I mean. For this...

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