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The graph of =, with a straight line that is tangent to (,). The slope of the tangent line is equal to . (The axes of the graph do not use a 1:1 scale.) The derivative of a function is then simply the slope of this tangent line.
In mathematics, the derivative is a fundamental tool that quantifies the sensitivity to change of a function's output with respect to its input. 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.
For this reason, the derivative is sometimes called the slope of the function f. [50]: 61–63 Here is a particular example, the derivative of the squaring function at the input 3. Let f(x) = x 2 be the squaring function. The derivative f′(x) of a curve at a point is the slope of the line tangent to that curve at that point. This slope is ...
Automatic differentiation is a subtle and central tool to automatize the simultaneous computation of the numerical values of arbitrarily complex functions and their derivatives with no need for the symbolic representation of the derivative, only the function rule or an algorithm thereof is required.
That is, the derivative of the area function A(x) exists and is equal to the original function f(x), so the area function is an antiderivative of the original function. Thus, the derivative of the integral of a function (the area) is the original function, so that derivative and integral are inverse operations which reverse each other. This is ...
A number of properties of the differential follow in a straightforward manner from the corresponding properties of the derivative, partial derivative, and total derivative. These include: [ 11 ] Linearity : For constants a and b and differentiable functions f and g , d ( a f + b g ) = a d f + b d g . {\displaystyle d(af+bg)=a\,df+b\,dg.}
A similar formulation of the higher-dimensional derivative is provided by the fundamental increment lemma found in single-variable calculus. If all the partial derivatives of a function exist in a neighborhood of a point x 0 and are continuous at the point x 0, then the function is differentiable at that point x 0.
for the first derivative, for the second derivative, for the third derivative, and for the nth derivative. When f is a function of several variables, it is common to use "∂", a stylized cursive lower-case d, rather than "D". As above, the subscripts denote the derivatives that are being taken.