Understanding Faraday's Law: -d & dt, E Explained

[fran1942]

Hello, our tutor gave us this equation for Faradays law, but I don't quite understand it's composition. (I have attached a graphic of the equation)
Can someone please tell me what the -d and dt represent ?
Also, what does the E stand for ? I thought it should be I (current).

Thanks kindly for any help.

 

[Dick]

E is the induced electromotive force around the loop. phi is the magnetic flux through the loop. the -d/dt indicates you take the negative of the time derivative of the flux to get the induced emf. I'm not sure this is going to be helpful if you don't know what 'd' and 'dt' mean. But that's what the equation means.