- #1
miglo
- 98
- 0
Homework Statement
a metal box with square base a no top holds 1000 cubic centimeters. it is formed by folding up the sides of the flattened pattern picture and seaming up the four sides. the material for the box costs $1.00 per square meter and the cost to seam the sides is 5 cents per meter. Find the dimensions of the box that costs the least to produce.
The Attempt at a Solution
so for this problem I've managed to find the function the gives the cost to make the box
after converting everything to the same units my function is [tex]C(x)=x^2+\frac{.004}{x}+\frac{.0002}{x^2}[/tex]
so the derivative for the cost function is [tex]C'(x)=2x-\frac{.004}{x^2}-\frac{.0002}{x^3}[/tex]
setting this equal to zero and using maple, i get [itex]x=0.1494530180[/itex] plus 3 more zeros but one is negative and the other two are complex so in the context of this problem those 3 make no sense
after plotting my function i can see the critical point i have found is in fact the minimum, but I am also asked to find the domain of my cost function and write up a proof that i have found a minimum and this is where I am stuck.
Homework Equations
if the cost function was given to me as just a regular function, one not in the context of this problem then i would say my domain would be all real except x=0, but I don't think it'll work for this
for my proof, i think ill have to use intermediate value theorem and extreme value theorem? but the extreme value theorem only works for closed intervals, and i still haven't found the domain