Computing Partial Derivatives and Gradients in Excel

DERIVF can be nested to compute partial derivatives of any order: $\frac{\partial}{\partial z} \frac{\partial}{\partial y} \frac{\partial}{\partial x} f (x, y, z)$

Examples

Collapse all examples

Example 1: Computing mixed partial derivatives of a 2-dimensional function

Consider the partial derivative:

$\frac{\partial}{\partial y} \frac{\partial}{\partial x} cos (x, y) = - sin (x y) - x y cos (x y)$

We compute the partial derivative of cos(xy) at (π,π) by nesting DERIVF and compare the result with the analytical value shown in B3 below:

Partial derivative at `(π,π)`

	A
1	=COS(X1*Y1)
2	=DERIVF(B1,X1,PI())
3	=DERIVF(B2,Y1,PI())

⇒

	A	B
1	1
2	0
3	9.3394486379	9.3394486379

Question or Comment? Email us:
support @ excel-works.com

ExceLab: Transforming Excel into a Calculus Power House

ExceLab functions and methods are protected by USA Patents 10628634, 10114812, 9892108 and 9286286.

ExcelWorks LLC

Computing Partial Derivatives and Gradients in Excel

Partial derivative at (π,π)

Partial derivative at `(π,π)`