In mathematics, a partial derivative of a function of several variables is its derivative with respect to one of those variables, with the others held constant (as opposed to the total derivative, in which all variables are allowed to vary). Partial derivatives are used in vector calculus and differential geometry.
The partial derivative of a function :
with respect to the variable is variously denoted by:
Sometimes, for
the partial derivative of with respect to
is denoted as
Since a partial derivative generally has the same arguments as the original function, its functional dependence is sometimes explicitly signified by the notation, such as in:
This script can calculate partial derivatives from melted data.