How to remember which function is concave and which one is convex?
I always struggle to remember when a function is convex and concave:
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 :)