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The differential was first introduced via an intuitive or heuristic definition by Isaac Newton and furthered by Gottfried Leibniz, who thought of the differential dy as an infinitely small (or infinitesimal) change in the value y of the function, corresponding to an infinitely small change dx in the function's argument x.
The term differential is used nonrigorously in calculus to refer to an infinitesimal ("infinitely small") change in some varying quantity. For example, if x is a variable, then a change in the value of x is often denoted Δx (pronounced delta x). The differential dx represents an infinitely small change in the variable x. The idea of an ...
In mathematics, differential calculus is a subfield of calculus that studies the rates at which quantities change. [1] It is one of the two traditional divisions of calculus, the other being integral calculus —the study of the area beneath a curve.
The classical finite-difference approximations for numerical differentiation are ill-conditioned. However, if is a holomorphic function, real-valued on the real line, which can be evaluated at points in the complex plane near , then there are stable methods.
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, ′ = ′ = (′) ′.
In multivariate calculus, a differential or differential form is said to be exact or perfect (exact differential), as contrasted with an inexact differential, if it is equal to the general differential for some differentiable function in an orthogonal coordinate system (hence is a multivariable function whose variables are independent, as they are always expected to be when treated in ...
A total differential equation is a differential equation expressed in terms of total derivatives. Since the exterior derivative is coordinate-free, in a sense that can be given a technical meaning, such equations are intrinsic and geometric.
Ordinary differential equations occur in many scientific disciplines, including physics, chemistry, biology, and economics. [1] In addition, some methods in numerical partial differential equations convert the partial differential equation into an ordinary differential equation, which must then be solved.