I'm trying to calculate the derivative with respect to $p1$, $p2$, ... $pk$ (each) of the following equation: $L = N_1 \log p_1 + N_2 \log p_2 + ... N_k \log p_k$
where $\Sigma_{i=1}^k p_i = 1$
i.e. I need to find $\partial L / \partial p_i$ for $i = 1, 2, ... k$
Since all the $p_i$'s are interdependent, how do I calculate the derivative? With k=2 it is possible to write $p_1 = p$ and $p_2 = 1 - p$, and differentiate with respect to $p$ but how do I do it for the general case?
Note: the $N_i$'s are constants
Write it as $$L=\sum _{j=1}^n N_j \log \left(\frac{p_j}{\sum _{i=1}^n p_i}\right)$$ and derive. Reusing later that $\sum _{i=1}^n p_i=1$, you should get for example $$\frac{\partial L}{\partial p_1}=-(N_2+N_3+\cdots+ N_n)+N_1\frac {1-p_1}{p_1}=\frac{N_1}{p_1}-\sum _{i=1}^n N_i$$ So $$\frac{\partial L}{\partial p_k}=\frac{N_k}{p_k}-\sum _{i=1}^n N_i$$