Calculus from Approximation to Theory

Calculus from Approximation to Theory Synopsis

Calculus from Approximation to Theory takes a fresh and innovative look at the teaching and learning of calculus. One way to describe calculus might be to say it is a suite of techniques that approximate curved things by flat things and through a limiting process applied to those approximations arrive at an exact answer. Standard approaches to calculus focus on that limiting process as the heart of the matter.

This text places its emphasis on the approximating processes and thus illuminates the motivating ideas and makes clearer the scientific usefulness, indeed centrality, of the subject while paying careful attention to the theoretical foundations. Limits are defined in terms of sequences, the derivative is defined from the best affine approximation, and greater attention than usual is paid to numerical techniques and the order of an approximation.

Access to modern computational tools is presumed throughout and the use of these tools is woven seamlessly into the exposition and problems. All of the central topics of a yearlong calculus course are covered, with the addition of treatment of difference equations, a chapter on the complex plane as the arena for motion in two dimensions, and a much more thorough and modern treatment of differential equations than is standard.

Dan Sloughter is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Furman University with interests in probability, statistics, and the philosophy of mathematics and statistics. He has been involved in efforts to reform calculus instruction for decades and has published widely on that topic. This book, one of the results of that work, is very well suited for a yearlong introduction to calculus that focuses on ideas over techniques.