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Given two normed vector spaces $(V,\|\cdot\|_V),(W,\|\cdot\|_W)$ over some field $F$ equipped with some modulus $|\cdot|$, and a function $f:V \to W$, we say $f$ is differentiable at ${\bf a}\in V$ along direction ${\bf{v}}\in V$ if

$\lim_{h→0}⁡\frac{‖f({\bf a}+h{\bf v})-f({\bf a})-h{\bf u}‖_W}{|h|}=0$

where the norms and modulus are real-valued, and $h \to 0$ is a notation for $|h| \to 0$. We say

$\frac{\partial f({\bf a})}{\partial {\bf v}}={\bf u}$

is the derivative of $f$ along direction $\bf {v}$ at $\bf a$. In particular, if $\|{\bf v}\|_V=1$, then such defined $\frac{\partial f({\bf a})}{\partial {\bf v}}$ is the directional derivative of $f$ at $\bf a$ with respect to direction $\bf v$.

Now the question is to prove

if $f$ is differentiable near $\bf a$ along any direction and $f$ is continuous at $\bf a$, then $g({\bf v})=\frac{\partial f({\bf a})}{\partial {\bf v}}$ is a linear map, i.e.

1) $\frac{\partial f({\bf a})}{\partial {c\bf v}}=c\frac{\partial f({\bf a})}{\partial {\bf v}}$

2)$\frac{\partial f({\bf a})}{\partial {\bf (u+v)}}=\frac{\partial f({\bf a})}{\partial {\bf u}}+\frac{\partial f({\bf a})}{\partial {\bf v}}$

for any $c\in F$,${\bf u},{\bf v} \in V$

I am able to show the first by the following,

enter image description here

but I am not able to solve the second one. Thanks!

  • 0
    Can you first show that $\dfrac{\partial f}{\partial\mathbf v}(\mathbf a)$ varies continuously with $\mathbf a$?2017-01-30

0 Answers 0