After completing this section, students should be able to do the following.

  • Describe the goals of optimization problems generally.
  • Find all local maximums and minimums using the First and Second Derivative tests.
  • Identify when we can find an absolute maximum or minimum on an open interval.
  • Contrast optimization on open and closed intervals.
  • Describe the objective function and constraints in a given optimization problem.
  • Solve optimization problems by finding the appropriate extreme values.