Solutions to Worksheet for Lesson 19 (Section 15.3 and 15.

5)
Partial Derivatives
Math 20
November 2, 2007

Find all first partial derivatives of the functions.

1. f (x, y) = 3x + 2xy 2 − 2y 4

Solution. We have
∂f ∂f
= 3 + 2y 2 = 4xy − 8y 3
∂x ∂y

2. w = sin α cos β

Solution. We have
∂w ∂w
= cos α cos β = − sin α sin β
∂α ∂β

d 1
3. f (u, v) = arctan(u/v) (Remember that arctan(x) = .)
dx 1 + x2

Solution. For this it’s important to remember the chain rule!

∂f 1 ∂ u 1 1
= 2
= 2
∂u 1 + (u/v) ∂u v 1 + (u/v) v
∂f 1 ∂ u 1 −u
= =
∂u 1 + (u/v)2 ∂v v 1 + (u/v)2 v 2
Another way to write this is
∂f v ∂f −u
= 2 = 2
∂u u + v2 ∂v u + v2

1
 q
4. u = x21 + x22 + · · · + x2n

Solution. We have a partial derivative for each index i, but luckily they’re symmetric. So
each derivative is represented by:
∂u 1 ∂
= p 2 (x21 + x22 + · · · + x2n )
∂xi 2 2
2 x1 + x2 + · · · + xn i ∂x
xi
=p 2 2
x1 + x2 + · · · + x2n

5. Find all the second derivatives of the functions in Problems 1 and 2.

Solution. For Problem 1, we have

∂2f ∂2f
=0 = 4y
∂x2 ∂x∂y
∂2f ∂2f
= 4y = −24y 2
∂y∂x ∂y 2
For Problem 2, we have
∂
wαα = cos α cos β = − sin α cos β
∂α
wβα = wαβ = − cos α sin β
∂
wββ =− sin α sin β = − sin α cos β
∂β

00 00
6. Verify that f12 = f21 in Problem 3.

Solution. We have

00 (u2 + v 2 )(1) − v(2v) u2 − v 2

f12 (u, v) = 2 2 2
= 2
(u + v ) u + v 2 )2
00 (u2 + v 2 )(−1) − (−u)(2v) u2 − v 2
f21 (v, u) = =
(u2 + v 2 )2 u2 + v 2 )2