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Posted

What is the graphical interpretation of the mixed partials? The partial derivative is pretty straightforward graphically, but I don't know about the mixed. Is it just a measure of the magnitude of the slope of the plane tangent to the surface at a given point?

  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

Is there even a graphical significance? The only thing I've seen thusfar is that it is one of the quantities looked at when deciding if a point is a max or min.

Posted

The second order derivatives of a continuous function is known as the Hessian matrix of that function.

 

These are important in Morse theory, classical mechanics and the Legendre transformation, symplectic geometry and other things. I will have to have a think about any nice geometric picture of what is going on.

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