Re-Constructing the Quotient Rule - At A Glance

One of the nifty tricks we can do with the chain rule is reconstruct the quotient rule. To find the derivative of

first rewrite the function like this:

h(x) = f(x) · (g(x))-1.

Now that h is written as a product, we can use the product rule to find its derivative:

h ' (x) = f ' (x)(g(x))-1 + f(x) · ((g(x))-1)'.

Now there are two big steps left. First we'll use the chain rule to find this derivative:

h ' (x) = f ' (x)(g(x))-1 + f(x) · ((g(x))-1)'.

Then we'll simplify the formula we got using the product rule until it magically turns into the quotient rule.

Chain Rule:

To finish applying the product rule, we need to know

((g(x))-1)'

In other words, we need to know the derivative of the nested function

(g(x))-1

Do our chain rule stuff. The outside function is

(□)-1,

and its derivative is

-(□)-2.

The inside function is

g(x),

and its derivative is

g ' (x).

Now we can use the chain rule:

((g(x))-1)' = -(g(x))-2 · g ' (x)

Since (g(x))-2 is the same thing as , we can rewrite this as

Returning to the product rule,

We can do some great simplifying here. Since (g(x))-1 is the same thing as , we can rewrite this as

Now we can put the fractions over a common denominator and combine them:

Ta-daa! This is the quotient rule.