It sounds good. But I have no idea how to create something like that...

http://integrals.wolfram.com/index.jsp

That probably implies that it's very hard to make one. For one thing, there are lots of different rules for differentiating different functions. You also need to recognise when to use the product, chain and quotient rules as well as sometimes having to rearrange an equation before you differentiate it.

And on top of all that, some functions aren't differentiable anyway. How would we be able to tell the difference between a non-differentiable function and just a function that the program couldn't differentiate? I'm not saying don't try to, I'm sure it would be a fascinating and challenging project, I'm just saying that it will probably be very difficult to get it to work.

It would be fun... for instance it may be good to try to use Object oriented programming.  Create a generalized function class and derive all other functions from this class. (inheritance) A class for simple power functions who's member includeds its exponant, its coefficient, and its variable name, a method to differentiate this is easy. getDerivative() it would multiply the exponent by the coefficient and decrease the exponant by 1. An exponential function a^x is easy also. sine and cosine functions easy to get derivative and you can use the quotent rule to calculate the other trig functions. The tricky thing I suppose would be setting up the order of precedence. In otherwords distinguishing between the "inside" and "outside" functions to use the chain rule properly.

Another problem would likely be ending up with long expressions that need to be simplified.

When I get better at programming I may take a crack at it and see how far I get.

Last edited by mikau (2006-10-22 01:24:16)