Talk:Second derivative test

Reference to Second partial derivative test should be deleted
The article on the second partial derivative test is pretty poor. In particular, the only case which is discussed in any detail is a function of two variables. I added a few sentences to the article pointing out that the eigenvalues of the Hessian are, in the general case, the quantities of interest, but there's no information on that page (e.g. a proof) that does not already appear on this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.211.98.79 (talk) 14:56, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Functions of Two Variables
This article should be expanded to include functions of more than one variable, e.g. f(x,y) = x^4 + y^4 -4xy + 1. I will probably come back to this page later and fix this when I have time (in a week or two?), but if anyone wants to do it before me, feel free. Eck

Inflection points
What about the inflection point when the second derivative is zero?


 * Exactly, also accordig to http://mathworld.wolfram.com/InflectionPoint.html.


 * $$\ f^{\prime\prime}(x) = 0$$ is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for an inflection point. Oli Filth 18:50, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Consider this..
What about [ f(x):=x^2, f2(x):=2 ]? Consider [ x0:=3, r:=1 ]. [ f2(x) ] is continuous on [ x = 2..4 ] and [ f2(3)>0 ], but [ f(x0) ] is NOT a minimum of [ f(x) ]. - 149.159.92.56


 * x0=3 is not a critical point (the derivative there is 2x=6, not 0). &mdash;Steven G. Johnson 04:30, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

Third derivative?
I could not understand what to do when the second derivative is zero. What am I to do with the third derivative? Could someone describe this better? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.177.17.70 (talk) 06:31, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Revamp
I revamped the article. It was a mess, full of accumulated errors, the most serious of which confused concavity and extrema. Some more work could be done but I have to say I don't really care enough to do it. I just didn't want gross inaccuracies on a site some of my calc students might visit. 50.132.8.186 (talk) 06:19, 18 April 2013 (UTC)