Other Meanings
The term differential has also been adopted in homological algebra and algebraic topology, because of the role the exterior derivative plays in de Rham cohomology: in a cochain complex, the maps (or coboundary operators) di are often called differentials. Dually, the boundary operators in a chain complex are sometimes called codifferentials.
The properties of the differential also motivate the algebraic notions of a derivation and a differential algebra.
Read more about this topic: Differential (mathematics)
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