Calculator Calculus

How THIS BOOK DIFFERS This book is about the calculus. What distinguishes it, however, from other books is that it uses the pocket calculator to illustrate the theory. A computation that requires hours of labor when done by hand with tables is quite inappropriate as an example or exercise in a beginning calculus course. But that same computation can become a delicate illustration of the theory when the student does it in seconds on his calculator. t Furthermore, the student's own personal involvement and easy accomplishment give hi reassurance and en- couragement. The machine is like a microscope, and its magnification is a hundred millionfold. We shall be interested in limits, and no stage of numerical approximation proves anything about the limit. However, the derivative of fex) = 67.SgX, for instance, acquires real meaning when a student first appreciates its values as numbers, as limits of 10 100 1000 t A quick example is 1.1, 1.01, 1.001, ---- Another example is t = 0.1, 0.01, in the function e/3t+9-3)/t. ix difference quotients of numbers, rather than as values of a function that is itself the result of abstract manipulation.

Author: G. McCarty
Publisher: Springer
Published: 10/21/1982
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.71lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.58d
ISBN: 9780419129103

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