Calculus III - Differentials

Show Mobile Notice

Mobile Notice

You appear to be on a device with a "narrow" screen width (i.e. you are probably on a mobile phone). Due to the nature of the mathematics on this site it is best viewed in landscape mode. If your device is not in landscape mode many of the equations will run off the side of your device (you should be able to scroll/swipe to see them) and some of the menu items will be cut off due to the narrow screen width.

Section 13.5 : Differentials

This is a very short section and is here simply to acknowledge that just like we had differentials for functions of one variable we also have them for functions of more than one variable. Also, as we’ve already seen in previous sections, when we move up to more than one variable things work pretty much the same, but there are some small differences.

Given the function $z = f\left( {x,y} \right)$ the differential $dz$ or $df$ is given by,

d z = f_{x} d x + f_{y} d y or d f = f_{x} d x + f_{y} d y

$dz = {f_x}\,dx + {f_y}\,dy\hspace{0.5in}{\mbox{or}}\hspace{0.5in}df = {f_x}\,dx + {f_y}\,dy$

There is a natural extension to functions of three or more variables. For instance, given the function $w = g\left( {x,y,z} \right)$ the differential is given by,

d w = g_{x} d x + g_{y} d y + g_{z} d z

$dw = {g_x}\,dx + {g_y}\,dy + {g_z}\,dz$

Let’s do a couple of quick examples.

Example 1 Compute the differentials for each of the following functions.

$z = {{\bf{e}}^{{x^2} + {y^2}}}\tan \left( {2x} \right)$
$\displaystyle u = \frac{{{t^3}{r^6}}}{{{s^2}}}$

Show All Solutions Hide All Solutions

z = e^{x^{2} + y^{2}} tan (2 x)

$z = {{\bf{e}}^{{x^2} + {y^2}}}\tan \left( {2x} \right)$ Show Solution

There really isn’t a whole lot to these outside of some quick differentiation. Here is the differential for the function.

d z = (2 x e^{x^{2} + y^{2}} tan (2 x) + 2 e^{x^{2} + y^{2}} {sec}^{2} (2 x)) d x + 2 y e^{x^{2} + y^{2}} tan (2 x) d y

$dz = \left( {2x{{\bf{e}}^{{x^2} + {y^2}}}\tan \left( {2x} \right) + 2{{\bf{e}}^{{x^2} + {y^2}}}{{\sec }^2}\left( {2x} \right)} \right)dx + 2y{{\bf{e}}^{{x^2} + {y^2}}}\tan \left( {2x} \right)dy$

u = \frac{t^{3} r^{6}}{s^{2}}

$\displaystyle u = \frac{{{t^3}{r^6}}}{{{s^2}}}$ Show Solution

Here is the differential for this function.

d u = \frac{3 t^{2} r^{6}}{s^{2}} d t + \frac{6 t^{3} r^{5}}{s^{2}} d r - \frac{2 t^{3} r^{6}}{s^{3}} d s

$du = \frac{{3{t^2}{r^6}}}{{{s^2}}}dt + \frac{{6{t^3}{r^5}}}{{{s^2}}}dr - \frac{{2{t^3}{r^6}}}{{{s^3}}}ds$

Note that sometimes these differentials are called the total differentials.