system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What exactly is a partial derivative?

What exactly is a partial derivative? I have a basic idea of a derivative i.e, I know that dy/dx is rate of change of y with respect to x and that it represents the slope of a curve 

Thanks!
gpt
It’s still a slope. But when you multiple variables then you have a surface instead of just a curve. You can hold all but one variable constant then take the derivative to find the slope in only one direction.