When you press
you see a list of options as shown below.
Options 1 and 2 are discussed in the
evaluating and zeros lesson. This lesson will focus on options 3:minimum and 4:maximum. Let’s start by using the minimum feature.
Enter the
equation into your calculator and
graph it in a
standard window.
The minimum of this
graph is at the
vertex of the parabola. The value of the
vertex can be computed using a formula (
vertex lesson) or by using the calculator.
From the
graph screen, press
and choose option 3. You have asked the calculator to find a minimum
point on this graph. To perform this operation, you must tell the calculator where to look for this minimum value.
The screen you see is asking for the Left Bound of the region (interval) you would want the calculator to look in.
If your cursor is not already somewhere to the left of the
vertex use the left arrow key
to move the cursor to the left of the minimum point.
Now press
.
The calculator is now asking for the right boundary of the search. Use the right arrow key
to place the cursor to the right of the minimum value.
When the calculator asks for Guess?
You simply press
and the answer will be on the bottom of the screen.
The screen shows the minimum value at (1, -5). This is the
vertex of the parabola. Notice that the calculator was not exact on the screen shown above. You may have ended up with an x – value of 0.999987 or something else really close to 1. This is a calculator limitation and you must learn to recognize when the calculator has not been able to be exact.
If a
parabola opens down, the
vertex is the maximum
point on the
graph and can be found by using option 4 (maximum) from the CALCULATE menu.
Graph to see that the
vertex of this
parabola is a maximum.
The process for finding a maximum is identical to finding a minimum. You will need to set a left bound and a right bound for the calculator to search. Make sure you can find the maximum of this
parabola at (2.5, -1.75).
Again notice that in my computations, the x-value did not
turn out to be exactly 2.5. You may have had a similar problem, but you should report your answer as x = 2.5.
Use the maximum or minimum feature to find the
vertex of each
parabola below. Make sure you can get the answers that are given.
1. 2. 3. - maximum at (0, -2). Be careful if you get something in scientific notation for the x-value. This is the calculator way for giving zero as an answer.
4.
It is possible to use the minimum or maximum feature to find a low or high
point or a
function that is not a parabola. The
graph of
looks like:
Notice there is a place where the
graph peaks and begins to go back down. (It looks to be around x = -3) and a place where the
graph bottoms out and begins to go back up (it looks to be between x = -1 and x = 0).
The process for finding these localized minimum and maximum values is the same as it was for a quadratic. Make sure you can find a maximum at (-3.12, 4.06) and a minimum at (-0.21, -8.21)
Notice you can also find the zeros of this function. You should be able to find the zeros of the
function at x = -4, x = -2 and x = 1.
If you need help using the zero computation, go to the
Using the CALCULATE menu-Part I lesson. To learn more about zeros,
click here.
Use the maximum or minimum feature to find the maximum and minimum values of the functions below.
1. - local maximum at (-1.3, 0.3) and a local minimum at (1.3, -8.3)
2. - local minimum at (-1.67, -7.48) and a local maximum at (1, 2) a