11. More Calculus with Python

Activity 11.01: Finding the Minimum of a Surface

Solution:

1. We need to import the random module to use its uniform function, which chooses a random decimal value in a given range:

   import random
   from math import sin, cos,sqrt,pi

2. Create a function that will provide us with partial derivative of f with respect to u at (v,w):

   def partial_d(f,u,v,w,num=10000):
       """returns the partial derivative of f
       with respect to u at (v,w)"""
       delta_u = 1/num
       try:
           if u == 'x':
               return (f(v+delta_u,w) - f(v,w))/delta_u
           else:
               return (f(v,w+delta_u) - f(v,w))/delta_u
       except...