Ministry of Science and Education Republic

of Azerbaijan
Baku Engineering University

Faculty: Architecture and Construction

Specialty: Industrial engineering

Stage of education: II

Group: 4382i

Subject: Calculus-II

Student: Alovsat Sadigli

Topic of Individual work: Multivariable Function and Partial Derivatives

Academic year: 2023-2024

Teacher: Mutallim R.Sharifli,Asst.Prof.,Ph.D.

Baku-2023
 Multivariable Functions

What are multivariable functions?

When I first learned about functions, and maybe this is true for you too, I remember
always thinking about them as taking in a number and outputting a number. A typical
example would be something like this:

\[f(x) = x^2\]

Or this:

\[f(x) = \sin(x)+2\sqrt{x}\].

And if you think back to the first time you learned about functions, you might have
been taught to imagine the function as a machine which sucks in some input,
somehow manipulates it, then spits out an output

But really, functions don't just have to take in and spit out numbers, they can take in
any thing and spit out any thing. In multivariable calculus, that thing can be a list of
numbers. That is to say, the input and/or output can consists of multiple number.
Example of different types of functions
Single-number input Multiple-number inputs

Single-number \[f(x) = x^2\] \[{f(x, y) = x^2 + y^3}\]

output

Multiple-number \[{f(t) = (\cos(t), \ \[{f(u, v) = (u^2 - v, v^2

output sin(t))}\] + u)}\]

A multivariable function is just a function whose input and/or output is made up of

multiple numbers. In contrast, a function with single-number inputs and a single-
number outputs is called a single-variable function.
Note: Some authors and teachers use the word multivariable for functions with
multiple-number inputs, not outputs.

Lists of numbers \[\leftrightarrow\] points in space

What makes multivariable calculus beautiful is that visualizing functions, along with
all the new calculus you will learn to manipulate them, involves space with multiple
dimensions.

For example, say the input of some function you are dealing is a pair of numbers,
like \[(2, 5)\]. You could think about this as two separate things: the number two and
the number five.

However, it's more common to represent a pair like \[(2, 5)\] as a single point in two-
dimensional space, with \[x\]-coordinate \[2\] and \[y\]-coordinate \[5\].

Similarly, it's fun to think about a triplet of numbers like \[(3, 1, 2)\] not as three
separate things, but as a single point in three-dimensional space.

So multivariable functions are all about associating points in one space with points in
another space. For example, a function like \[f(x, y) = x^2 y\], which has a two-
variable input and a single-variable output, associates points in the \[xy\]-plane with
points on the number line. A function like \[f(x, y, z) = (yz, xz, xy)\] associates points
in three-dimensional space with other points in three-dimensional space.

In the next few articles, I'll go over various methods you can use to visualize these
functions. These visualizations can be beautiful and often extremely helpful for
understanding why a formula looks the way it does. However, it can also be mind-
bendingly confusing at times, especially if the number of dimensions involved is
greater than three.

I think it is comforting to sit back and realize that at the end of the day, it's all just
numbers. Maybe it's a pair of numbers turning into a triplet, or maybe it's one
hundred numbers turning into one hundred thousand, but ultimately any task that
you perform—or that a computer performs—is done one number at a time.

Vector-valued functions
Sometimes a list of numbers, like \[(2, 5)\], is not thought about as a point in space,
but as a vector. That is to say, an arrow which involves moving \[2\] to the right and \
[5\] up as you go from its tail to its tip.
To emphasize the conceptual difference, it's common to use a different notation,
either writing the numbers vertically,

This is, of course, only a conceptual difference. A list of numbers is a list of numbers
no matter whether you choose to represent it with an arrow or a point. Depending on
the context, though, it can feel more natural to think about vectors. Velocity and
force, for instance, are almost always represented as vectors, since this gives the
strong visual of movement, or of pushing and pulling.

For whatever reason, when it comes to multivariable functions, it is more commonly

the output that you think of as a vector, while you think about the input as a point.
This is not a rule, it just happens to play out that way I guess.

Terminology

Functions whose output is a vector are called vector-valued functions, while

functions with a single number as their output are called either scalar-valued, as is
common in engineering, or real-valued, as is common in pure math (real as in real
number).

Examples of multivariable functions

The more you try to model the real world, the more you realize just how constraining
single-variable calculus can be. Here are just a few examples of where multivariable
functions arise.

Example 1: From location to temperature

 Global temperature

To model varying temperatures in a large region, you could use a function which
takes in two variables—longitude and latitude, maybe even altitude as a third—and
outputs one variable, the temperature. Written down, here's how that might look:

\[T = f(L_1, L_2)\]

 \[T\] is temperature.
 \[L_1\] is longitude.
 \[L_2\] is latitude.
 \[f\] is some complicated function that determines which temperature each longitude-
latitude pair corresponds with.
Alternatively, you could say that the temperature \[T\] is a function of longitude \
[L_1\] and latitude \[L_2\] and write it as \[T(L_1, L_2)\].

Example 2: From time to location

 \[y\]\[x\]\[t = 0\]\[t = 1\]\[t = 2\]\[t = 3\]
Path of a particle through space.

To model how a particle moves through space over time, you could use a function
which takes in one number—the time—and outputs the coordinates of the particle,
perhaps two or three numbers depending on the dimension you are modeling.

There are a couple different ways this could be written down:

\[\vec{\textbf{s}} = f(t)\]

 \[\vec{\textbf{s}}\] is a two or three dimensional "displacement vector", indicating the

position of the particle.
 \[t\] is time.
 \[f\] is a vector-valued function.
Alternatively, you might break down components of the vector-valued function into
separate scalar-valued functions \[x(t)\] and \[y(t)\], which indicate the coordinates of
x and y as functions of time:

\[\begin{aligned}
x(t) &= \dots (\text{some expression of $t$})\dots\\
 y(t) &= \dots (\text{some other expression of $t$})\dots\\
\end{aligned}\]

Example 3: From user data to prediction

When a website tries to predict a user's behavior, it might create a function that takes
in thousands of variables, including the user's age, the coordinates of their location,
the number of times they've clicked on links of a certain type, etc. The output might
also include multiple variables, such as the probability they will click on a different
link or the probability they purchase a different item.

Example 4: From position to a velocity vector

If you are modeling the flow of a fluid, one approach is to express the velocity of
each individual particle in the fluid. To do this, imagine a function which takes as its
input the coordinates of a particle, and which outputs the velocity vector of that
particle.

Again, there are several ways this might look written down:

\[\vec{\textbf{v}} = f(x, y)\]

 \[\vec{\textbf{v}}\] is a two-dimensional velocity vector.

 \[x\] and \[y\] are position coordinates.
 \[f\] is a multivariable vector-valued function.
Alternatively, you could break up the components of the vector-valued function \
[f\] and use \[\hat{\textbf{i}}\], \[\hat{\textbf{j}}\] notation:

\[\vec{\textbf{v}} = g(x,y) \hat{\textbf{i}} + h(x, y) \hat{\textbf{j}}\]

 \[\vec{\textbf{v}}\] is a two-dimensional velocity vector.

 \[\hat{\textbf{i}}\] is the unit vector in the \[x\]-direction.
 \[\hat{\textbf{j}}\] is the unit vector in the \[y\]-direction.
 \[g\] is a scalar-valued function indicating the \[x\] component of each vector as a
function of position.
 \[h\] is a scalar-valued function indicating the \[y\] component of each vector as a
function of position.
 Where calculus fits in
There are two fundamental topics in calculus:


Derivatives, which study the rate of change of a function as you tweak its input.



Integrals, which study how to add together infinitely many infinitesimal
quantities that make up a function's output.


Multivariable calculus extends these ideas to functions with higher-dimensional
inputs and/or outputs.

With respect to the examples above, rates of change could refer to the following:

 How temperature changes as you move in a some direction.

 The amount an online shopper's behavior changes as some aspect of the site
changes.
 The fluctuations in flow rate across space.
 On the other hand, "add together infinitely many infinitesimal quantities" might mean

 Finding the average temperature.

[How is this "infinite aggregation"?]

 Computing the total work done on a particle by some external force while it moves.
 Describing the net velocity of an entire region of some flowing liquid.
What makes these cases fundamentally different from single variable calculus is that
we will need to describe changes in different directions, as well as how those
changes relate to each other. You'll see what I mean in coming topics.

Like ordinary derivatives, the partial derivative is defined as a limit. Let U be an open subset of and a

function. The partial derivative of f at the point with respect to the i-th variable xi is
defined as

Where is the unit vector of i-th variable xi. Even if all partial derivatives exist at a given point a, the
function need not be continuous there. However, if all partial derivatives exist in a neighborhood of a and are continuous there,
then f is totally differentiable in that neighborhood and the total derivative is continuous. In this case, it is said that f is
a C1 function. This can be used to generalize for vector valued functions, , by carefully using a componentwise
argument.

The partial derivative can be seen as another function defined on U and can again be partially differentiated. If the
direction of derivative is not repeated, it is called a mixed partial derivative. If all mixed second order partial derivatives are
continuous at a point (or on a set), f is termed a C2 function at that point (or on that set); in this case, the partial derivatives can
be exchanged by Clairaut's theorem: