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In mathematics, Fermat's theorem (also known as interior extremum theorem) is a method to find local maxima and minima of differentiable functions on open sets by showing that every local extremum of the function is a stationary point (the function's derivative is zero at that point). Fermat's theorem is a theorem in real analysis, named after ...
In calculus, the second derivative, or the second-order derivative, of a function f is the derivative of the derivative of f. Informally, the second derivative can be phrased as "the rate of change of the rate of change"; for example, the second derivative of the position of an object with respect to time is the instantaneous acceleration of ...
In mathematics and computer science, a higher-order function (HOF) is a function that does at least one of the following: takes one or more functions as arguments (i.e. a procedural parameter, which is a parameter of a procedure that is itself a procedure), returns a function or value as its result. All other functions are first-order functions.
Derivative test. In calculus, a derivative test uses the derivatives of a function to locate the critical points of a function and determine whether each point is a local maximum, a local minimum, or a saddle point. Derivative tests can also give information about the concavity of a function. The usefulness of derivatives to find extrema is ...
v. t. e. In calculus, Taylor's theorem gives an approximation of a -times differentiable function around a given point by a polynomial of degree , called the -th-order Taylor polynomial. For a smooth function, the Taylor polynomial is the truncation at the order of the Taylor series of the function.
In calculus, the product rule (or Leibniz rule[1] or Leibniz product rule) is a formula used to find the derivatives of products of two or more functions. For two functions, it may be stated in Lagrange's notation as or in Leibniz's notation as. The rule may be extended or generalized to products of three or more functions, to a rule for higher ...
The higher order derivatives can be applied in physics; for example, while the first derivative of the position of a moving object with respect to time is the object's velocity, how the position changes as time advances, the second derivative is the object's acceleration, how the velocity changes as time advances.
The Lie derivative is the rate of change of a vector or tensor field along the flow of another vector field. On vector fields, it is an example of a Lie bracket (vector fields form the Lie algebra of the diffeomorphism group of the manifold). It is a grade 0 derivation on the algebra.