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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 a real-valued function of a single real variable, the derivative of a function at a point generally determines the best linear approximation to the function at that point. Differential calculus and integral calculus are connected by the fundamental theorem of calculus. This states that differentiation is the reverse process to integration.
The derivative f′(x) of a curve at a point is the slope (rise over run) of the line tangent to that curve at that point. Differential calculus is the study of the definition, properties, and applications of the derivative of a function. The process of finding the derivative is called differentiation. Given a function and a point in the domain ...
The order of the differential equation is the highest order of derivative of the unknown function that appears in the differential equation. For example, an equation containing only first-order derivatives is a first-order differential equation, an equation containing the second-order derivative is a second-order differential equation, and so on.
The partial derivative generalizes the notion of the derivative to higher dimensions. A partial derivative of a multivariable function is a derivative with respect to one variable with all other variables held constant. [1]: 26ff A partial derivative may be thought of as the directional derivative of the function along a coordinate axis.
For real-valued functions of a real variable, y = f(x), its ordinary derivative dy/dx is geometrically the gradient of the tangent line to the curve y = f(x) at all points in the domain. Partial derivatives extend this idea to tangent hyperplanes to a curve. The second order partial derivatives can be calculated for every pair of variables:
Differentiation with respect to time or one of the other variables requires application of the chain rule, [1] since most problems involve several variables. Fundamentally, if a function F {\displaystyle F} is defined such that F = f ( x ) {\displaystyle F=f(x)} , then the derivative of the function F {\displaystyle F} can be taken with respect ...
Consider the following second-order problem, ′ + + = () =, where = {,, <is the Heaviside step function.The Laplace transform is defined by, = {()} = ().Upon taking term-by-term Laplace transforms, and utilising the rules for derivatives and integrals, the integro-differential equation is converted into the following algebraic equation,