A Gentle Introduction to Derivatives of Powers and Polynomials

One of the most frequently used functions in machine learning and data science algorithms are polynomials or functions involving powers of x. It is therefore, important to understand how the derivatives of such functions are calculated.

In this tutorial, you will discover how to compute the derivative of powers of x and polynomials.

After completing this tutorial, you will know:

  • General rule for computing the derivative of polynomials
  • General rule for finding the derivative of a function that involves any non-zero real powers of x

Let’s get started.