Find inflection points and describe concavity
Consider the function , defined for all real numbers.
Find all inflection points of , and determine the intervals on where is concave up and where it is concave down. State the -coordinates of the inflection points and describe the concavity behavior on each resulting interval.
Hint
Compute , set it equal to zero to find candidate points, then check whether the sign of actually changes at each candidate to confirm an inflection point.
Step-by-step solution
First compute the derivatives: and . Setting gives and as candidate inflection points, since is a polynomial and defined everywhere.
Testing signs of on the three intervals: for , both factors are negative so (concave up); for , and so (concave down); for , both factors positive so (concave up).
Since the sign of changes at both (from + to -) and (from - to +), both are genuine inflection points. Evaluating there: and , giving inflection points and .
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