Find the minimum and maximum values of $1/(\cos x + \sin x )$

687 Views Asked by At

The question states find the maximum and minimum values of $1/(\cos x + \sin x)$ and I turned it into $1/(\sqrt{2} \sin(x+\pi/4))$ and my answers are $1/\sqrt{2}$ for the maximum and $-1/\sqrt{2}$ minimum but the answer is $1/\sqrt{2}$ for the minimum and $-1/\sqrt{2}$ for the maximum.

Why are those the answers?

Thanks

2

There are 2 best solutions below

4
On BEST ANSWER

Hint: Let $$f(x)=\frac{1}{\sin(x)+\cos(x)}$$ then $$f'(x)=-{\frac {\cos \left( x \right) -\sin \left( x \right) }{ \left( \sin \left( x \right) +\cos \left( x \right) \right) ^{2}}} $$

2
On

Hint: $\sin x + \cos x = \sqrt{2}\sin(x+\pi/4)$. What is the maximal value of this expression? What is the maximal value of this expression? What happens if we invert these extremal values? What happens with the inverse if this value is $0$?