Created Friday 15 November 2013
The gradient of a function is an operator \( \nabla \) (pronounced del operator)
$$ \nabla f(x,y) = f_x \hat i + f_y \hat j$$
where \(f_x\) is the partial derivative of f with respect to x.
- In 2D, it points in the direction of the biggest ascent.
- In 1D, the gradient reduces to \( \nabla f(x) = f_x \hat i\). In other words, in 1D, the gradient of a function is just the slope.