We all know the fundamental theorems of calculus, if not check Wikipedia.  I now want to  demonstrate what has been called the fundamental misunderstanding of calculus.

Let us consider the two dimensional plane and equip it with coordinates \((x,y)\).  Associated with this choice of coordinates are  the partial derivatives

\(\left( \frac{\partial}{\partial x} , \frac{\partial}{\partial y} \right)\).

You can think about these in terms of the tangent sheaf etc. if so desired, but we will keep things quite simple.

Now let us consider a change of coordinates. We will be quite specific here for illustration purposes

\(x \rightarrow \bar{x} = x +y\),

\(y \rightarrow \bar{y} = y\).

Now think about how these effect the partial derivatives. This is really just a simple change of variables.  Let me now state  the fundamental misunderstanding of  calculus in a way suited to our example:

Misunderstanding: Despite coordinate x changing the partial derivative with respect to x remains unchanged. Despite the coordinate y remaining unchanged the partial derivative with respect to y changes.

This may seem at first counter intuitive, but is correct. Let us prove it.

Note hat we can invert the change of coordinate for x very simply

\(x = \bar{x} {-}\bar{y} \),

using the fact that y does not change. Then one needs to use the chain rule,

\(\frac{\partial}{\partial \bar{x}}  = \frac{\partial x}{\partial \bar{x}}\frac{\partial}{\partial x}+ \frac{\partial y}{\partial \bar{x}}\frac{\partial}{\partial y}   =    \frac{\partial}{\partial x}\),

\(\frac{\partial}{\partial \bar{y}}  = \frac{\partial x}{\partial \bar{y}}\frac{\partial}{\partial x}+ \frac{\partial y}{\partial \bar{y}}\frac{\partial}{\partial y}   =    \frac{\partial}{\partial y} {-} \frac{\partial}{\partial x} \).

There we are. Despite our initial gut feeling that that the partial derivative wrt y should remain unchanged we see that it is in fact the partial derivative wrt x that is unchanged.  This can course some confusion the first time you see it,  and hence the nomenclature the fundamental misunderstanding of calculus.

I apologise for forgetting who first named the misunderstanding.