What is a corner in calculus?

    A derivative at a specified point is only defined for a function where there is only one slope at that specified point. A corner is one type of shape to a graph that has a different slope on either side. It is similar to a cusp.

    You may see corners in the context of absolute value functions, like:

    ##y = -|x| + 2##: graph{ -|x| + 2 [-10, 10, -5, 5]}

    Here, the derivative at ##x = 0## is undefined, because the slope on the left side is ##1##, but the slope on the right side is ##-1##.

    Similarly, a cusp looks like this:

    ##y = 2sqrt(|x|)##: graph{2sqrt(|x|) [-10, 10, -5, 5]}

    As you can see, it also has two different (and undefined) slopes at ##y = 0##, so it is considered to have an undefined derivative at that point.

    If you’re curious, the derivative of ##|x|## is ##x/|x|##.

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