HP 50g Graphing Calculator User Manual

Page 462

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Page 14-2

.

Similarly,

.

We will use the multi-variate functions defined earlier to calculate partial
derivatives using these definitions. Here are the derivatives of f(x,y) with respect
to x and y, respectively:

Notice that the definition of partial derivative with respect to x, for example,
requires that we keep y fixed while taking the limit as h 0. This suggest a way
to quickly calculate partial derivatives of multi-variate functions: use the rules of
ordinary derivatives with respect to the variable of interest, while considering all
other variables as constant. Thus, for example,

,

which are the same results as found with the limits calculated earlier.
Consider another example,

In this calculation we treat y as a constant and take derivatives of the expression
with respect to x.

Similarly, you can use the derivative functions in the calculator, e.g., DERVX,
DERIV,

∂ (described in detail in Chapter 13) to calculate partial derivatives.

Recall that function DERVX uses the CAS default variable VX (typically, ‘X’),

h

y

x

f

y

h

x

f

x

f

h

)

,

(

)

,

(

lim

0

+

=

k

y

x

f

k

y

x

f

y

f

k

)

,

(

)

,

(

lim

0

+

=

(

)

(

)

)

sin(

)

cos(

),

cos(

)

cos(

y

x

y

x

y

y

y

x

x

=

=

(

)

xy

yx

y

yx

x

2

0

2

2

2

=

+

=

+

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