Calculus was developed by many workers, and their incremental progress was independently systematized by Newton and Leibnitz in the late 1600s. At that time the concept of limit had not been devised yet, and even the concept of a function was still in development, and there was not yet a precise definition of a function. … Read more
The Calculus of Friendship: What a Teacher and a Student Learned about Live While Corresponding about Math (2009) is a delightful book by Steven Strogatz. Strogatz is Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics at Cornell University, and he writes beautifully. The book is about his decades-long correspondence with one of his high-school mathematics teachers, … Read more
One of the common errors made by calculus learners is to consider infinity as a number. True, there are number systems such as the extended real number system in which infinity is successfully treated as a number, and you can ponder on them if you wish, but for our purposes at this level of learning … Read more
What is calculus and what is it used for? Calculus includes an enormous number of ideas, methods, and applications, and this post is an attempt to provide an overview. Most of the interesting phenomena that are analyzed scientifically involve change. The flow of wind and water, the orbits of the planets, the path of a … Read more
Solving systems of equations Solving a single linear equation with one unknown quantity is a task that is studied in elementary school. One proceeds in high school to study more complex equations involving more involved functions. Many problems in mathematics and its scientific applications amount to solving equations, and especially to solving systems of equations. … Read more
How does the value of $\cos^{-1} \left ( 0.1 \, \textrm{cm} \right )$ differ from $\cos^{-1} \left ( 0.1 \, \textrm{m} \right )$? This is an interesting question, especially because the question of units in trigonometric and inverse trigonometric functions is rarely discussed in mathematics textbooks. It is discussed in physics textbooks, so you may … Read more
The standard method (typically found in first-year calculus textbooks) for determining the integrals $\int e^x \cos x \, {\rm d}x$ and $\int e^x \sin x \, {\rm d}x$ is to integrate by parts twice. If you haven’t seen the standard method, I’ll show you how to do the first one; the second one is similar. … Read more
Two weeks ago I posted a puzzle sent to me by my nephew Matthew: 1 is 3, 3 is 5, 5 is 4, and 4 is cosmic. Why is 4 cosmic? What happens to the other numbers? As I mentioned in the earlier post, I slept on this before solving it. I initially thought about … Read more
In teaching calculus many, many times over the years, I strove to present to my students my approach to learning and mastering the subject. Part of this approach can be summarized by the slogan memorize the minimum As a teacher, I took it as part of my responsibility to help students identify the essential core … Read more
There has been a war in the mathematics education world for the past few decades about whether students should master basic skills, or whether they should use calculators or software for basic skills to save time and energy for higher-level thinking. More and more people nowadays are seeing this for what it is: a false … Read more