Khan's proof of the derivative of the inverse cosine function

49 Views Asked by At

In one of his thousands of videos, Khan used to prove the derivative of the inverse cosine function. But I don't understand one of his steps.

Basically, he wants to find $\frac{d}{dx}\cos^{-1}x$ so he do the sub: $y=\cos^{-1}x$ then with some manipulation he arrives at: $x=\cos y$ then he takes the derivative of both sides with respect to x and he come up $1=(-\sin y)\frac{dy}{dx}$. That's the step I don't understand.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On

Because he is differentiating $x = \cos y $ with respect to $x$. In other words,

$$ x = \cos y \iff \frac{ dx}{dx} = \frac{ d ( \cos y)}{dx} \iff 1 = -\sin y \frac{dy}{dx}$$

By the chain Rule since $y$ depends on $x$