Upside-down triangle symbol on function

Question

I came across the symbol that looks like an upside-down triangle, and coming in front of a function $f(x,y)$. What does that mean?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mathematical_symbols – Claude Leibovici Dec 18 '13 at 07:35 — Claude Leibovici, Dec 18 '13 at 07:35
The symbol's name is nabla or del. – Lucian Dec 18 '13 at 10:09 — Lucian, Dec 18 '13 at 10:09

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 18 '13 at 07:34

2

The upside-down triangle is likely a gradient operator in this context:

$$\nabla f(x,y) = \frac{\partial f}{\partial x}\hat{x} + \frac{\partial f}{\partial y}\hat{y}.$$

answered Dec 18 '13 at 07:34

John

1 Answers1