Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646–1716), German philosopher, mathematician, and namesake of this widely used mathematical notation in calculus.. In calculus, Leibniz's notation, named in honor of the 17th-century German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, uses the symbols dx and dy to represent infinitely small (or infinitesimal) increments of x and y, respectively ...
The precise meaning of the variables and depends on the context of the application and the required level of mathematical rigor. The domain of these variables may take on a particular geometrical significance if the differential is regarded as a particular differential form , or analytical significance if the differential is regarded as a ...
Such equations give rise to the terminology found in some texts wherein the derivative is referred to as the "differential coefficient" (i.e., the coefficient of dx). Some authors and journals set the differential symbol d in roman type instead of italic: dx. The ISO/IEC 80000 scientific style guide recommends this style.
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.
In Leibniz's notation, if x is a variable quantity, then dx denotes an infinitesimal change in the variable x. Thus, if y is a function of x, then the derivative of y with respect to x is often denoted dy/dx, which would otherwise be denoted (in the notation of Newton or Lagrange) ẏ or y ′.
Some natural geometric shapes, such as circles, cannot be drawn as the graph of a function. For instance, if f(x, y) = x 2 + y 2 − 1, then the circle is the set of all pairs (x, y) such that f(x, y) = 0. This set is called the zero set of f, and is not the same as the graph of f, which is a paraboloid.
Since dV = dx dy dz is the volume for a rectangular differential volume element (because the volume of a rectangular prism is the product of its sides), we can interpret dV = ρ 2 sin φ dρ dφ dθ as the volume of the spherical differential volume element.
The precise meaning of the variables dy and dx depends on the context of the application and the required level of mathematical rigor. The domain of these variables may take on a particular geometrical significance if the differential is regarded as a particular differential form , or analytical significance if the differential is regarded as a ...