[R] First and second derivatives of raw observations

[David Winsemius]

On Aug 30, 2010, at 6:40 PM, mtorabi at math.carleton.ca wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I was asked to send the following question:
>
> We have some (raw) observations and would like to get the first and  
> second
> derivatives in R. Any comment would be appreciated.

 From the time of Newton, the quick and dirty (but often very  
informative) path to first and second derivatives has been via first  
and second differences. That, of course, assumes that the intervals  
between these "raw" observation are equal, which might or might not be  
a sensible assumption given the impossibly vague description of the  
problem.

-- 

David Winsemius, MD
West Hartford, CT