hedgehog_7
Member
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2015
- Messages
- 50
- Gender
- Male
- HSC
- 2016
Re: HSC 2016 3U Marathon
after differentiating xA - xB i ended up with 4(e^-t) (-t^2 + t +1). why does the absolute and the one without the absolute affect the answer? im just wonderingThis is not the difference between the two functions you gave.
The two position functions were:
xA(t) = 4te^(-t) and xB(t) = -4(t^2)e^(-t).
The squared-difference is: s(t) := (xA(t) – xB(t))2.
Try maximising that. (The distance isn't simply xA – xB, it is |xA – xB|. Since absolute values are less nice to work with than squared-distance, and optimising the squared-distance will be equivalent to optimised the distance, it is easier to work with the squared-distance instead.)