Both in my textbook and on Wikipedia, continuous differentiability of a function f:Rm→Rn is defined by the existence and continuity of all of the partial derivatives. Since there is a notion of a (total) derivative (AKA differential) for multivariable functions, I'm wondering why continuous differentiability is not defined as existence and continuity of the derivative map Df(a)? Is there some reason why having existence and continuity of partials is more convenient or maybe continuity of the total derivative is too strict of a condition?
Answer
Continuous differentiability of the function f:Rm→Rn (in terms of partial derivatives) is equivalent to existence and continuity of the map
Df:Rm→L(Rm,Rn)
x→Dfx
which takes a point to the derivative at the point. Any book on analysis on Rn will have a proof of this fact.
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