7 Votes

The difference between partial and total derivatives

Posted on 2013-01-04
If you keep up with this blog, youre probably the type who knows partial derivatives inside and out. If I were to
ask you about the partial derivative of with respect to , you would probably blurt out, zero, without skipping a
beat. On the other hand, you might not have come across the total derivative.
The total derivative gives the rate of change of a variable in terms of another variable, without assuming that all
other variables are held constant. Typically, to compute it, we use the chain rule to express dependencies in terms
of other dependencies. Notationally, this is very simple and intuitive and probably covered in the first lecture of a
course in thermodynamics :
Notice that a roman is used, which distinguishes the total derivative (at least, when printed) from both the
partial derivative and the ordinary derivative, which uses an italic . (The latter is also used in the expression
.)
If you are good with math, you can start using this immediately. For example, lets say
Then,
The intuition behind the terminology is not too hard to grasp. The partial derivative only captures some of the
information regarding the dependence of one variable upon another at a given point. The total derivative is built
up from several partial derivatives in order to capture all of the information, right?
Okay, sure. You can think of it that way if you want, and, indeed, that will suffice for practically any application of
partial and total differentiation. But the real meaning is more subtle than that, and thats what this post is about.
Now, lets start over. Whats the derivative of with respect to ?
Aha! Now Ive primed you to be all clever here and inquire for clarification! The partial derivative, which is 0, or
the total derivative, which is ? Say that, and youll be guaranteed to get the trick question right.
B
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Subtle :-Difficult to detect or grasp by the mind or analyze
But wait. There is something here that should bother you. If really is a function of , doesnt that render the
partial derivative completely meaningless? It looks as though the partial derivative simply operates on the
notation, whereas the total derivative gives you the actual variation between the quantities being studied. So
perhaps a partial derivative is nothing but a notational convenience used to build up the total derivative, which is
the expression you actually care about when calculating variation. And in the case that is actually independent of
, the total derivative expression reduces to 0, which is still correct.
Actually, this is not true. The partial derivative has meaning. But only if you think in terms of functions. People
who are not mathematicians dont really deal with functions. They deal with relationships between variables, and
use the machinery of functions for convenience. But mathematicians deal with functions. Indeed, the entire field
of real analysis deals with functions from to .
Lets review a basic fact about functions, which is not made clear outside of a post-secondary curriculum in pure
mathematics. A function itself is nothing more than some set of ordered pairs of elements from the domain and
codomain, subject to the restriction that no element in the domain is paired with more than one element from the
codomain. Fundamentally, a function has absolutely nothing to do with variables like . Variables are simply
convenient tools for writing down the definitions of specific functions, such as . However, notice that we
can simply refer to this function as the exponential function, without mentioning any variables at all, which
indicates that functions have an intrinsic, variable-free identity. Indeed, the vast majority of functions are
non-computable and have no defining expression at all (we usually call those functions pathological, though).
You can see this because the set of functions from to has cardinality whereas the set of all expressions that
we can use to write down the definitions of functions is merely countable.
By the way, this is very much like how coordinates are not part of the identity of a vector space; a vector space is
just a collection of things that satisfy the vector space axioms. We think of vectors in terms of coordinates,
perhaps, because we most often deal with the vector spaces with the standard basis. But coordinates dont
emerge until youve selected a basis, and the definition of a vector space gives you no clues about how to select
some unique, canonical basis. (This, by the way, is why higher physics uses such confusing objects as tensors,
raising and lowering indices, and covariant derivativesit needs to respect the observers arbitrary choice of a
coordinate system.)
Now then, partial derivatives are intrinsic properties of functions. A function whose domain is has up
to partial derivatives. We can notate these partial derivatives without using any variables at all. This is precisely
what is done in the well-known textbook Calculus on Manifolds by Michael Spivak. There, the notations
are used for the partial derivatives of the function with respect to the first, second, etc. elements of
(the tuple type of) the domain. Spivak goes so far as to refer to and so on as classical notation, with the
implication that they are beautiful and evocative but ultimately imprecise.
So lets say for example we have a function . This function is the unique function with this domain and
codomain such that a given element of the domain is associated with that element of the codomain that equals the
product of the first element and the exponential of the second element of the former. (We would normally write
this down, for convenience, as .) Then, this function has two partial derivatives, and . The
partial derivative is the function in which a given element of the domain is associated with that
element of the codomain that equals the exponential of the second element of the former. (In classical notation,
.) The other partial derivative is identical to itself.
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Indeed, then, you will see that the symbol has no meaning whatsoever on its own. It is not a true operator,
despite what quantum mechanics might have you think. An operator is a higher-order function, whose domain
itself contains functions (or other operators). cant just be fed a function and spit out another function. What is
applied to the exponential function? You cant answer, because youre expecting me to tell you which variable is
used in the definition of the exponential function. But its all the same function, whichever variable I pick. On the
other hand, the symbol is a true operator, whose domain is differentiable functions of at least one real. (For
functions of exactly one real, is the ordinary single-variable derivative.) And is an operator whose domain is
differentiable functions of at least two reals (since it picks out the second, and differentiates with respect to it.)
And so on. The symbol acquires meaning when it is paired with an expression, such as . The interpretation is
now that we have some function of at least two reals, that picks one of them to associate each tuple of the domain
with that ones exponential in the codomain, and we are taking the partial derivative with respect to some other
element. For example, where , or where .
In light of this revised, correct view of functions, what are total derivatives? Total derivatives are not
intrinsic properties of functions. Total derivatives do, in fact, operate on expressions, unlike partial
derivatives, which operate on functions. At the time of writing, we have the following from the Wikipedia article
on total derivatives:
Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_derivative
The part where it says, if y depends on x, is crucial, because it shows that associating total derivatives with
functions is self-contradictory. You simply cannot say that (which is implied by the notation ) and
then introduce a restriction that prevents the first and second elements of the ordered pair of the domain from
varying independently. Really, what youre doing by introducing this dependency is creating a new function,
, and taking the ordinary derivative of that, instead.
It is more correct to think of the total derivative, not as an operator, but as a notation that represents the
relationship between rates of change of two variables, out in the real world where there are no functions, just a
bunch of variables that may or may not depend on each other. The notation does not, then, represent something
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you do to the function . It represents the rate of change of the variable with respect to the variable .
Furthermore, the chain rule, in the form I gave in the beginning of this post, is actually an abuse of notation. The
thing on the left hand side is a total derivative, which is an expression, and not a function. The right hand side,
though, contains partial derivatives, so it looks as though the right hand side must come out to be a function. But
wait, the right hand side contains total derivatives too! Arrgh! The problem is that the right hand side contains
notation of the form . This does not make sense if we treat as a variable, but only if we treat as a function and
as one of the bound (dummy) variables used in its definition. So this chain rule is an abuse of notation in that
treats as a variable on the left hand side and as a function on the right hand side. It just happens to be an
extremely useful one because it helps you to calculate the total derivative.
With that in mind, lets revisit an old joke.
A polynomial and are walking down the street, when all of a sudden they notice a differential
operator heading toward them. The polynomial panics, and says, Uh oh, a differential operator.
If I run into it too many times, Ill disappear. says, Thats okay, Ill go talk to it. It cant do
anything to me, because Im . So approaches the differential operator, and says, Hi, Im .
The differential operator replies, Nice to meet you, . Im .
Some people might point out that will only be annihilated by the differential operator if is not a function of .
The truth is that this joke is just not precisely stated enough to hold up to this analysis (and that you should just
laugh at it without reading that much into it). You see, when you simply say d, its taken to mean the ordinary
derivative , rather than a total derivative. But then, since an ordinary derivative is a partial derivative with
respect to the sole real-valued variable, it must operate on functions, whereas in the joke the protagonist and
the deuteragonist, the polynomial, are merely expressions. The correct (but much less funny) joke then reads:
A polynomial and are walking down the street, when all of a sudden they notice a total
der i vati ve heading toward them. The polynomial panics, and says, Uh oh, a a total
der i vati ve. If I run into it too many times, Ill disappear. says, Thats okay, Ill go talk to it. It
cant do anything to me, because Im . So approaches the total der i vati ve, and says, Hi, Im
. The total der i vati ve replies, Nice to meet you, . Im . gulps and wi shes that
depended upon .
Or, even more forced:
A polynomial functi on and the functi on are walking down the street, when all of a
sudden they notice a differential operator heading toward them. The for mer panics, and says,
Uh oh, a differential operator. If I run into it too many times, Ill disappear. The latter says,
Thats okay, Ill go talk to it. It cant do anything to me, because Im the exponenti al functi on.
So approaches the differential operator, and says, Hi, Im . The differential operator replies,
Nice to meet you, . Im .
Sorry for killing the joke, but I hope at least now you understand the subtleties involved in the partial and total
derivatives.
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