How to remember which function is concave and which one is convex?

I always struggle to remember when a function is convex and concave:

enter image description here

Do you have a particular trick to help you remember this?

My trick is based on the Spanish phrase "No cabe", pronounced nô ˈka.βe, which sound just like "concave". "No cabe" means it does not fit. Thus, whilst you can put something into a convex function (e.g. think of a bowl), you cannot put something into a concave function. Hence the relation.

I am curious on what other, perhaps more efficient methods people use.


I think it just depends on how you learn.

When I took calculus, we didn't use "concave" and "convex" - rather, we (and the AP exam) used "concave up" and "concave down." I still use these as a grad student.

One can also remember that concave functions look like the opening of a cave.


In English, there is a great trick from David MacKay's recommended book on information theory: Just keep pronouncing the word "convex" as "convec-smile" and "concave" as "conca-frown" and the direction of the mouth of the corresponding smiley will tell you what the graph of the function looks like.


conVex - V looks like the convex function :)