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The plot displays the absolute error when computing the derivative of ${\displaystyle f(x)=x^{3}}$ (${\displaystyle f'(x)=3x^{2}}$) using a forward difference (of first order) and a centered difference (of second order),

${\displaystyle {\frac {f(x+h)-f(x)}{h}}-3x^{2}}$

for various values of ${\displaystyle x}$. The centered difference is for ${\displaystyle x=0.1}$ only.

The noisy negative slope is due to finite precision (64-bit IEEE754) in the computer used, and the positive slope is due to the formula error of the differentiation formula.

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