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One example of an optimization problem is: Find the shortest curve between two points on a surface, assuming that the curve must also lie on the surface. If the surface is a plane, then the shortest curve is a line. But if the surface is, for example, egg-shaped, then the shortest path is not immediately clear.
In calculus, the differential represents the principal part of the change in a function = with respect to changes in the independent variable. The differential is defined by = ′ (), where ′ is the derivative of f with respect to , and is an additional real variable (so that is a function of and ).
Examples of the latter include the Dirac delta function and distributions defined to act by integration of test functions against certain measures on . Nonetheless, it is still always possible to reduce any arbitrary distribution down to a simpler family of related distributions that do arise via such actions of integration.
The formula simplifies: = ′ (). The unit tangent vector determines the orientation of the curve, or the forward direction, corresponding to the increasing values of the parameter. The unit tangent vector taken as a curve traces the spherical image of the original curve.
In calculus, the chain rule is a formula that expresses the derivative of the composition of two differentiable functions f and g in terms of the derivatives of f and g.More precisely, if = is the function such that () = (()) for every x, then the chain rule is, in Lagrange's notation, ′ = ′ (()) ′ (). or, equivalently, ′ = ′ = (′) ′.
A 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.
For example, the second-order equation y′′ = −y can be rewritten as two first-order equations: y′ = z and z′ = −y. In this section, we describe numerical methods for IVPs, and remark that boundary value problems (BVPs) require a different set of tools. In a BVP, one defines values, or components of the solution y at more than one ...
This is useful, for example, if the vector-valued function is the position vector of a particle through time, then the derivative is the velocity vector of the particle through time. In complex analysis , the central objects of study are holomorphic functions , which are complex-valued functions on the complex numbers where the Fréchet ...