Need a refresher on partial differentiation and gradients for energy problems?

plutoisacomet
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Hello guys, My class is heading into energy with non-conservative and conservative forces. I am not in Calc this semester so is there a guide to partial differentiation and gradients that you can share with me to get up to speed?
Thanks
 
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Try this: http://www.math.hmc.edu/calculus/tutorials/partialdifferentiation/
 
Thanks Doc Al that link is very helpful. I can do my energy problem sets now.
Many thanks.
 
There are two things I don't understand about this problem. First, when finding the nth root of a number, there should in theory be n solutions. However, the formula produces n+1 roots. Here is how. The first root is simply ##\left(r\right)^{\left(\frac{1}{n}\right)}##. Then you multiply this first root by n additional expressions given by the formula, as you go through k=0,1,...n-1. So you end up with n+1 roots, which cannot be correct. Let me illustrate what I mean. For this...
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