Discriminant - Discriminant of A Differentiable Function

Discriminant of A Differentiable Function

In differential topology, the discriminant of a differentiable function f is the same as the set of critical values of f. The discriminant in this sense is somewhat related to the discriminant of a polynomial; for example, if f(x)=ax2+bx+c is a quadratic (a≠0), then the critical value of f will be which is (up to a constant) equal to the discriminant of a quadratic polynomial.