[FMA 2F002 EP - Topology & Multivariable Calculus] – Bachelor (Year 2) 2025-26. Prof. L.
Pirio
Week 10, December 5th: Partial derivatives
Instructor: Luc Pirio
Tutorial Assistants: Filipp Buryak, Xiaodong Li, Jian Wang
Exercise 1. Justify that the following functions are differentiable and compute their differentials:
1. f1 : R2 → R defined by f1 (x, y) = exy (x + y) for every (x, y) ∈ R2 .
2. f2 : R3 → R defined by f2 (x, y, z) = xy + yz + zx for every (x, y, z) ∈ R2 .
3. f3 : R2 → R defined by f (x, y) = (y sin(x), cos(x)) for every (x, y) ∈ R2 .
Exercise 2. Let f : R2 → R a function of class C 1 .
1. Let g : R → R such that g(t) = f (2 + 2t, t2 ). Show that g is C 1 and compute g′ .
2. Let h : R2 → R such that h(u, v) = f (uv, u2 + v 2 ). Show that h is C 1 and compute its differential.
Exercise 3. Let f : R2 → R defined as
x2 y
(
x2 +y 2
if (x, y) 6= (0, 0)
f (x, y) =
0 otherwise.
1. Prove that f is continuous on R2 .
2. What are f (0, k) and f (h, 0)?
3. Deduce that if f is differentiable at (0, 0) then d(0,0) f = 0.
4. What is f (h, h)?
5. Deduce that f is not differentiable at (0, 0).
Exercise 4. Let f be a differentiable function on Rn and assume that f is homogeneous of degree m ∈ N∗ ,
meaning
f (tx) = tm f (x)
for all t ∈ R∗ and x ∈ Rn .
1. Prove that ∂k f is homogeneous of degree m − 1 for every k.
2. Prove that for all x ∈ Rn ,
n
X
xk ∂k f (x) = mf (x).
k=1
1
[FMA 2F002 EP - Topology & Multivariable Calculus] – Bachelor (Year 2) 2025-26. Prof. L. Pirio
Exercise 5. Let f1 : R2 \ {(0, 0)} → R and f2 : R3 → R be defined as
p
f1 (x, y) = ln(x2 + y 2 ) and f2 (x, y, z) = xy + yz + xz.
Define also x1 = (1, 1), x2 = (−1, 1, 7), e1 = (2, 1) and e2 = (3, 4, −12).
Compute ∂ei fi (xi ) for i = 1, 2.
Exercise 6. Let f be defined as
x3
(
x2 +y 2
if (x, y) 6= (0, 0)
f (x, y) =
0 otherwise.
Prove that f is not differentiable at (0, 0) but that for any ϕ : [0, 1] → R2 of class C 1 passing by (0, 0),
f ◦ ϕ is differentiable.