reciprocal rule

Reciprocal rule

The reciprocal rule is written as \[\left( \frac{1}{f(x)} \right)^{\prime}=-\frac{f^{\prime}(x)}{(f(x))^{2}}\].

Proof

\begin{align*} \left( \frac{1}{f(x)} \right)^{\prime}&=\lim_{h\to0}\frac{\left(\displaystyle \frac{1}{f(x+h)} \right)-\left( \displaystyle \frac{1}{f(x)} \right)}{h}\\ &=\lim_{h\to0}\frac{\left( \displaystyle \frac{f(x)-f(x+h)}{f(x+h)f(x)} \right)}{h}\\ &=\lim_{h\to0}\frac{f(x)-f(x+h)}{hf(x+h)f(x)}\\ &=\left( \lim_{h\to0}-\frac{f(x+h)-f(x)}{h} \right)\cdot \left( \lim_{h\to0}\frac{1}{f(x+h)}\cdot \frac{1}{f(x)} \right)\\ &=-f^{\prime}(x)\cdot \frac{1}{(f(x))^{2}}\\ &=-\frac{f^{\prime}(x)}{(f(x))^{2}}\\ \end{align*}
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