You are here:
- Home
- Teens
- Homework/Study Tips
- Calculus
- Gradients
Calculus/Gradients
Advertisement
Question
Hi. My name is Vincent and I'm currently a high school student. I'm having a little trouble understand a couple concepts in my calculus class. We're learning about directional derivatives and gradients right now.
I was wondering what exactly a directional derivative means. Also, I understand that you can take the gradient of a function to find a vector normal to the curve. However, is that true in all cases? And lastly, can you take the gradient of a function of three variables?
The gradient of a function is the derivative of the function with respect to a given variable.
The gradient is a vector. The gradient can be taken for function with several variables.
For example :
f(x,y)=x^2+y^2 , then : Grad(f)=[2x,2y]=2x[i]+2y[j] .
The directional derivative is : Gradient*direction vector .
Alon.
Related Articles
Answers by Expert:
Alon Mandes
Expertise
Kind of questions I can answer : Limits, Derivatives, Integration, Implicit functions, continuousity, differentiation ,Extremum problems, Lagrange multipliers, Gradients, Surface integrals, Multi variables functions ,Multi variables Integrals,Complex variables ,Complex functions, Curves, Trajectory integrals & Vector analyse,Divergence,Rotor & word problems. Kind of question I can't answer : Economics,Combinatorics,infinite series & convergence ,Statistics & Probabilities .
Experience
1. I'm a team member of mathnerds (math site for answering questions)
2. I'm a team member in the Student's Union of the Technion, helping
students who have problems in mathematics.
3. 2 years of experience as a math teacher in college.
4. I give free homework help for high school students in
Mathematics & Physics.
5. I teach part time in collage the subjects : "Digital Signal Processing" , "Random Signals & Noise" ,
"Complex Functions".
Organizations
Hi-Tech company : GSM4VOIP ; job possition : Algorythm developer.
Education/Credentials
M.A in Mathematics & Bs.c in Electronics.
©2012 About.com, a part of The New York Times Company. All rights reserved.