Find the x coordinate of the stationary points of the curve with equation y = 2x^3 - 0.5x^2 - 2x + 4
Firstly, to find the stationary points of a curve you must differentiate the equation of the curve. To do this each x component is multiplied by its current power and then the power is decreased by one. Any terms without x are simply removed. This gives dy/dx = 6x^2 - x - 2. For stationary points the derivative is then set equal to 0. In this case to find the x values the derivative should be factorised, giving (2x+1)(3x-2)=0. Each of these can be treated separately as (2x+1)=0 and (3x-2)=0. These can then be rearranged to give x = 1/2 and x = 2/3.
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