<s>[INST] How to solve derivative/limit of $f(x)=x\sqrt{4-x^2}$ I'm trying to differentiate $x\sqrt{4-x^2}$ using the definition of derivative.
So it would be something like
$$\underset{h\to 0}{\text{lim}}\frac{(h+x) \sqrt{4-\left(h^2+2 h x+x^2\right)}-x \sqrt{4-x^2}}{h}$$
I was trying to solve and I just can end up with something like
$$\underset{h\to 0}{\text{lim}}\frac{(x+h)\sqrt{4-x^2-2xh-h^2}-x\sqrt{4-x^2}}h \cdot \frac{\sqrt{4-x^2-2xh-h^2}+\sqrt{4-x^2}}{\sqrt{4-x^2-2xh-h^2}+\sqrt{4-x^2}}$$
$$\underset{h\to 0}{\text{lim}}\frac{-3x^2h-3xh^2+4h-h^3+\sqrt{4-x^2}-\sqrt{4-x^2-2xh+h^2}}{h\sqrt{4-x^2-2xh-h^2}+\sqrt{4-x^2}}$$
Now if I group on h, I will have some tricky 3 instead of 2.
The idea is I should have something like $h(2x^2+4)$ that would cancel up.
I'm quite stuck can I ask a little of help? I know wolframalpha exists but it refuses to create the step by step solution with the error "Ops we don't have a step by step solution for this query".
The final result shall be
$$-\frac{2 \left(x^2-2\right)}{\sqrt{4-x^2}}$$
 [/INST] I think your algebra could look more like:
$$\begin{align}
&\frac{(x+h)\sqrt{4-(x+h)^2}-x\sqrt{4-x^2}}{h}\cdot\frac{(x+h)\sqrt{4-(x+h)^2}+x\sqrt{4-x^2}}{(x+h)\sqrt{4-(x+h)^2}+x\sqrt{4-x^2}}\\
&=\frac{(x+h)^2(4-(x+h)^2)-x^2(4-x^2)}{h\left((x+h)\sqrt{4-(x+h)^2}+x\sqrt{4-x^2}\right)}\\
\end{align}$$
This leaves no radicals in the numerator.
In the numerator, once this is multiplied out, all $h$-free terms will have canceled out through adding terms to their negatives.
Then you can factor $h$ from the top and cancel the $h$ in the denominator. Then it will be OK to just let $h\to0$.
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