In mathematics, the gradient is a generalization of the usual concept of derivative of a function in one dimension to a function in several dimensions. If f(x1, ..., xn) is a differentiable, scalar-valued function of standard Cartesian coordinates in Euclidean space, its gradient is the vector whose components are the n partial derivatives of f. It is thus a vector-valued function.Similarly to the usual derivative, the gradient represents the slope of the tangent of the graph of the function.