
# 14.3: Partial Differentiation

[ "article:topic", "Partial Differentiation", "Tangent plane", "Tangent Line", "authorname:guichard" ]

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When we first considered what the derivative of a vector function might mean, there was really not much difficulty in understanding either how such a thing might be computed or what it might measure. In the case of functions of two variables, things are a bit harder to understand. If we think of a function of two variables in terms of its graph, a surface, there is a more-or-less obvious derivative-like question we might ask, namely, how "steep'' is the surface. But it's not clear that this has a simple answer, nor how we might proceed. We will start with what seem to be very small steps toward the goal; surprisingly, it turns out that these simple ideas hold the keys to a more general understanding.

### Contributors

• Integrated by Justin Marshall.