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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.
When x and y are real variables, the derivative of f at x is the slope of the tangent line to the graph of f at x. Because the source and target of f are one-dimensional, the derivative of f is a real number. If x and y are vectors, then the best linear approximation to the graph of f depends on how f changes in several
Tangent line at (x 0, f(x 0)). 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 ...
The last expression is the second derivative of position (x) with respect to time. On the graph of a function, the second derivative corresponds to the curvature or concavity of the graph. The graph of a function with a positive second derivative is upwardly concave, while the graph of a function with a negative second derivative curves in the ...
In SI, this slope or derivative is expressed in the units of meters per second per second (/, usually termed "meters per second-squared"). Since the velocity of the object is the derivative of the position graph, the area under the line in the velocity vs. time graph is the displacement of the object. (Velocity is on the y-axis and time on the ...
The derivatives in the table above are for when the range of the inverse secant is [,] and when the range of the inverse cosecant is [,]. It is common to additionally define an inverse tangent function with two arguments , arctan ( y , x ) {\textstyle \arctan(y,x)} .
Using calculus, it is possible to relate the infinitely small changes of various variables to each other mathematically using derivatives. If y is a function of x, then the differential dy of y is related to dx by the formula =, where denotes not 'dy divided by dx' as one would intuitively read, but 'the derivative of y with respect to x '.
If x 0 is an interior point in the domain of a function f, then f is said to be differentiable at x 0 if the derivative ′ exists. In other words, the graph of f has a non-vertical tangent line at the point (x 0, f(x 0)). f is said to be differentiable on U if it is differentiable at every point of U.