How to | Take a Derivative
The Wolfram Language makes it easy to take even the most complicated derivatives involving any of its huge range of differentiable special functions.
Define a function with one variable, :
To find , type f'[x] and press :
This method works for any order; just add more primes:
Or use D. Its first argument is the function and its second argument is the variable:
For higher-order derivatives using D, the second argument is a list, {variable,order}:
Define a function with two variables, :
Take the first derivative with respect to and the second with respect to by combining the two forms (single variable and list):
The Heaviside theta function is treated as if it had an infinite pulse at zero, where it is undefined:
The HeavisideTheta function has special derivative properties:
This plots the HeavisideTheta (green) and DiracDelta (red) functions: