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Lecture

Directional Derivatives and Tangent Planes

In course

MATH-106(f): Analysis II

Étudier les concepts fondamentaux d'analyse et le calcul différentiel et intégral des fonctions réelles de plusieurs variables. ...

Description

This lecture covers the concept of directional derivatives, the existence of partial derivatives, and the geometric interpretation of tangent planes. It explains how to determine if a function is differentiable at a point and provides examples to illustrate these concepts. The lecture also discusses the conditions for a function to be driftable and the properties of tangent planes. Additionally, it explores the relationship between directional derivatives and tangent planes, emphasizing the importance of understanding these concepts in multivariable calculus.

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Instructors (3)

David Valentin Strütt

Adélie Eliane Garin

Boris Buffoni

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Mathematics

Analysis: Calculus

Related concepts (32)

Derivative

In mathematics, the derivative shows the sensitivity of change of a function's output with respect to the input. Derivatives are a fundamental tool of calculus. For example, the derivative of the position of a moving object with respect to time is the object's velocity: this measures how quickly the position of the object changes when time advances. The derivative of a function of a single variable at a chosen input value, when it exists, is the slope of the tangent line to the graph of the function at that point.

Generalizations of the derivative

In mathematics, the derivative is a fundamental construction of differential calculus and admits many possible generalizations within the fields of mathematical analysis, combinatorics, algebra, geometry, etc. The Fréchet derivative defines the derivative for general normed vector spaces . Briefly, a function , an open subset of , is called Fréchet differentiable at if there exists a bounded linear operator such that Functions are defined as being differentiable in some open neighbourhood of , rather than at individual points, as not doing so tends to lead to many pathological counterexamples.

Covariant derivative

In mathematics, the covariant derivative is a way of specifying a derivative along tangent vectors of a manifold. Alternatively, the covariant derivative is a way of introducing and working with a connection on a manifold by means of a differential operator, to be contrasted with the approach given by a principal connection on the frame bundle – see affine connection. In the special case of a manifold isometrically embedded into a higher-dimensional Euclidean space, the covariant derivative can be viewed as the orthogonal projection of the Euclidean directional derivative onto the manifold's tangent space.

Differentiable function

In mathematics, a differentiable function of one real variable is a function whose derivative exists at each point in its domain. In other words, the graph of a differentiable function has a non-vertical tangent line at each interior point in its domain. A differentiable function is smooth (the function is locally well approximated as a linear function at each interior point) and does not contain any break, angle, or cusp. If x0 is an interior point in the domain of a function f, then f is said to be differentiable at x0 if the derivative exists.

Total derivative

In mathematics, the total derivative of a function f at a point is the best linear approximation near this point of the function with respect to its arguments. Unlike partial derivatives, the total derivative approximates the function with respect to all of its arguments, not just a single one. In many situations, this is the same as considering all partial derivatives simultaneously. The term "total derivative" is primarily used when f is a function of several variables, because when f is a function of a single variable, the total derivative is the same as the ordinary derivative of the function.

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Covers functions with values in R^m, discussing limits, partial derivatives, and differentiability.

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Explores directional derivatives, their calculation, examples, and cases of lack of continuity.

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