# Maple TA - What is this asking?

likearollings

## Homework Statement

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/5496/16943970.jpg [Broken]

Could anybody here tell me what this question is asking?

I have tried differentiating with respect to y and keeping x and z constant but i got the asnwer wrong. The topic of this assignment is 'review of differentiaion' so im assuming its something to do with differentiation.

If any body is familiar with maple TA, is it a glitch or something?

What does f subscript zx mean?

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likearollings

Dustinsfl
Partial derivative

likearollings
Thank you SO MUCH for the overwhelming response, I managed to filter through all the replies and found a lot of correct answer telling me that i had to:

differentiate with respect to x and then again with z.

again thank you so much

Homework Helper
Gold Member
Thank you SO MUCH for the overwhelming response, I managed to filter through all the replies and found a lot of correct answer telling me that i had to:

differentiate with respect to x and then again with z.

again thank you so much

Actually, fzx means differentiate first with respect to z, then respect to x. Of course, the answers are the same if you have continuity of the second partials. Using the other notation you have

$$f_{zx} = \frac {\partial^2}{\partial x \partial z}f$$

so, unfortunately, the two notations are reversed from each other.