Maple TA - What is this asking?

[likearollings]

Homework Statement

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/5496/16943970.jpg

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 I am assuming its something to do with differentiation.

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

What does f subscript zx mean?

thanks in advance

 

[likearollings]

dont be affraid to answer

 

[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

 

[LCKurtz]

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, f_zx 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.