Calculus is taught in three parts. The first thing they'll try to teach you is limits. The only reason they try to teach you limits is so that they can prove that differentiation (see below) works. This is pretty much pointless. You know about the quadratic formula and completing the square for solving quadratic equations, right? Do you care how they work? Most of the time I just
use them. So just remember enough of limits to get you through the tests on them, and forget the rest.
Next is differential calculus, which is a method for finding the derivative of a function. (See quote above.) It produces
another function whose value is the slope of the original function at any given point. Differential calculus is kind of similar to completing the square, and a lot like baking a cake. Follow
the rules and it will turn out fine.
Finally (as far as basic calculus goes) comes integral calculus. Integrating a function is the process of finding what function you'd need to take the derivative of to get the function you're working with. If a derivative is baking a cake, an integral is reverse-engineering a cake (figuring out how much of which ingredients went into it.) As you might imagine, this process is difficult, not always possible without dragging a computer into it, and always leaves a margin for error. One or more undefined constants are usually part of the answer; though these constants may become defined when the integral is applied to a word problem.
So to summarize, limits are stupid, derivatives are cool, and integrals are messy. ^_^
This is why I didn't finish my minor in physics. :ninja: (That big S is the symbol for an integral.)
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