Learning Resources

Investigation 9: Looking Inside the Box: Properties of the Function y = ex & Investigation 10: The Derivative of y = ex

The Power Rule only holds true for expressions with a constant exponent.

You may recall that the Power Rule was obtained by applying the definition of the derivative to polynomial functions. Thus, there is no guarantee that it will work for any other type of function.

In fact, the Power Rule works for all polynomial functions and for some, but not all, other functions.