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Steps into Calculus

Basics of Partial Differentiation

This guide introduces the concept of differentiating a function of two
variables by using partial differentiation. It will explain what a partial
derivative is and how to do partial differentiation.

Introduction

Partial differentiation is used to differentiate functions which have more than one
variable in them. It is more general than differentiating functions of one variable, which
is known as ordinary differentiation and is introduced in the study guide: What is
Differentiation? Partial differentiation can be used for finding maxima and minima in
optimisation and for describing more complicated processes in science in what are
known as partial differential equations (see the study guide: Basics of Differential
Equations).

The first functions you encounter are usually functions of one variable y  f (x ) as
described in the study guide: Using Functions. For example the function y  f ( x )  x 2
takes a value x as its input, squares it and outputs it. The graph of this function is given
by the x, y  coordinates that satisfy the equation y  x 2 and the gradient of this function
is dy / dx  2x which comes from differentiating x 2 using the power rule (see the study
guide: Differentiating using the Power Rule). In other words, the rate of change of y with
respect to x will be 2x. This sort of differentiation is called ordinary differentiation.

Functions can depend on more than one variable. A function with two variables can be
written as z  f x, y  and it has partial derivatives with respect to x or y.

For a function of two variables z  f x, y  :

z
The partial derivative with respect to x is written as .
x
z
The partial derivative with respect to y is written as .
y

Here you can see that partial derivatives are written with a “curly d” which looks like “  ”
and not with the Latin letter “d ” which is used to write a derivative in functions of one
variable. An alternative notation is the subscript notation where:

z f
 zx and  fy
x y

An example of a function with two variables is z  x 2  y 2  16 in which z depends on

both x and y. You need to supply two inputs in order to get one output. The graph of
this function is a three-dimensional surface like a bowl. You could ask, “What is the
gradient of this surface?” To find this, do you differentiate with respect to x or y? Unlike
a function of one variable, how the function changes will depend on which variable is
altered. Imagine walking down a hill. The gradient is steeper if you walk straight down
the hill and less steep if you take the longer route by going down at an angle. In other
words, the gradient of the function will depend on which direction you choose. For a
function of two variables, you could choose either the x-direction or the y-direction and
the gradient depends on your choice. The gradients are given by the partial derivative
with respect to x and the partial derivative with respect to y.

In this example z is a function of two variables x and y which are independent. Partial
differentiation should not be confused with implicit differentiation of the implicit
function x 2  y 2  16  0 , for example, where y is considered to be a function of x and
therefore not independent of x. See study guide: Implicit Differentiation for more on this.

Partial differentiation can be applied to functions of more than two variables but, for
simplicity, the rest of this study guide deals with functions of two variables, x and y.

How to do partial differentiation

Partial differentiation builds on the concepts of ordinary differentiation and so you should
be familiar with the methods introduced in the Steps into Calculus series before you
proceed. In fact, for a function of one variable, the partial derivative is the same as the
ordinary derivative.

Example: Find the partial derivatives of z  3x 2 .

The function is really only a function of x and so:

z
 6x
x

which is the same as the ordinary derivative since dz / dx  6x too. The function does
not depend on y and so it does not change as y changes and so:
 z
0
y

In general, however, for a function z  f x, y  :

z
is found by keeping y constant and differentiating as usual with respect to x.
x
z
is found by keeping x constant and differentiating as usual with respect to y.
y

To help with partial differentiation it is very useful to remember a rule from ordinary
differentiation which is discussed in the study guide: Differentiating using the Power Rule

If y  a f x   b where a and b are constants, then  a f x 

dy
dx

So that constants, such as b, when added to functions differentiate to 0 but

constants multiplying functions, such as a, are retained and so still multiply the
derivative.

If you are partially differentiating with respect to x, for example, then the variable y is
kept constant and so must be treated as a or b in the rules above. Also, since it is being
treated as a constant, functions of y such as y 2 , 8 y or sin y  are also treated as
constants and so act as if they were the a or b in the rule above.

Example: Find the first partial derivatives of z  x 2  6x  y 2  4y  14 .

To find the partial derivative with respect to x you can split this into three parts:

x 2  6x is a function of x only and so partially differentiates to 2x  6 .

y  4y
2
is a function of y only and so is treated as a constant and so
differentiates to 0.
14 is a constant and so differentiates to 0.

z
And so  2x  6
x

To find the partial derivative with respect to y you can split this into three parts:

x 2  6x is a function of x only and so is treated as a constant and so

differentiates to 0.
y 2  4y is a function of y only and so partially differentiates to 2y  4 .
14 is a constant and so differentiates to 0.
 z
And so  2y  4
y

Example: Find the first partial derivatives of z  x 2 y 3

To find z / x you must treat y as a constant. Then it is the same as ordinary

differentiation of the function ax 2 except that the constant a is actually y 3 and so:

z
 2xy 3 .
x

To find z / y you must treat x as a constant. Then it is the same as ordinary

differentiation of a function such as ay 3 except that the constant a is actually x 2 and so:

z
 3x 2 y 2 .
y

Gradients

The graph of the function from the last-but-one example, z  x 2  6x  y 2  4y  14 , is a

parabolic surface (a bowl) as shown below.

f(x,y) f(x,y)

x 5

As you have seen in the previous section a partial derivative is obtained by holding one
of the variables constant. If x is held constant, say x  5 for example (as shown in the
graph on the right), then the function is a quadratic function in y only:

z  52  6  5  y 2  4y  14  y 2  4y  9
So its graph is a 2D parabola. The graph on the right shows the cross-section of the
parabolic surface taken at x  5 . Where it intersects the surface is the 2D parabola.
The gradient of this parabola is given by z / y  2y  4 which was calculated in the
example from before. If y is held constant then the function would become a quadratic in
x with gradient z / x  2x  6 as calculated in the second example in this guide.

Higher derivatives
Just as with functions of one variable, functions of many variables can be differentiated
more than once to obtain second, third or higher partial derivatives such as:

2z 3z
or
x 2 y 3

For the function z  f ( x, y ) , partially differentiating the first derivative again using the
partial differential operator gives second derivatives with respect to x and y:

  z   2 z   z   2 z
  and  
x  x  x 2 y  y  y 2

These are very similar to the ordinary differentiation case (see study guide: The
Differential Operator for an explanation of this.)

However, for multivariable functions, these are not the only kinds of second derivative.
For multivariable functions it is also possible to partially differentiate with respect to
different variables and these are called mixed derivatives. So the function z  f ( x, y )
may be partially differentiated with respect x and then y or with respect to y and then x:

  z   2 z   z  2z
  and   
y  x  yx x  y  xy

Using the subscript notation, the four second order partial derivatives of z can be written
as: z xx , z yy , z xy and z yx .

Example: Find all the second order partial derivatives of the function z  5x 3 y 2 .

First find the first two partial derivatives, z / x and z / y and then partially
differentiate these with respect to x and y to find the second partial derivatives  2z / x 2 ,
 2 z / yx ,  2 z / xy and  2 z / y 2 . The diagram below shows how this is done.
Arrows going right are partial differentiation with respect to y and arrows going left are
partial differentiation with respect to x.

z  5x 3 y 2

z z
 15 x 2 y 2  10 x 3 y
x y

2z 2z 2z 2z

 30xy 2  30 x 2 y   30 x 2 y  10x 3
x 2
yx xy y 2

You can see that the two mixed derivatives are equal. In fact, under certain conditions,
this will always be true. This is known as Schwarz’ or Young’s theorem which states that
it does not matter what order the partial differentiation is done.

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