Question

How do you estimate the instantaneous rate of change?

Answer 1

The average rate of change of a function f(x) at point x=a is defined as

`(Δf)/(Δx)=(f(x)-f(a))/(x-a)`

Explanation:

Then to estimate the instantaneous rate of change at all we need to do is to choose values of x getting closer and closer to x=a (don’t forget to chose them on both sides of x=a) and compute values of Δf/Δx. We can then estimate the instantaneous rate of change from that.