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A Gentle Introduction To Learning Calculus

I have a love/hate relationship with calculus: it demonstrates the beauty of math and the agony of math education. Calculus relates topics in an elegant, brain-bending manner. My closest analogy is Darwins Theory of Evolution: once understood, you start seeing Nature in terms of survival. You understand why drugs lead to resistant germs (survival of the fittest). You know why sugar and fat taste sweet (encourage consumption of high-calorie foods in times of scarcity). It all fits together. Calculus is similarly enlightening. Dont these formulas seem related in some way?

They are. But most of us learn these formulas independently. Calculus lets us start with circumference = 2 * pi * r and figure out the others the Greeks would have appreciated this. Unfortunately, calculus can epitomize whats wrong with math education. Most lessons feature contrived examples, arcane proofs, and memorization that body slam our intuition & enthusiasm. It really shouldnt be this way.

Math, art, and ideas

Ive learned something from school: Math isnt the hard part of math; motivation is. Specifically, staying encouraged despite

Teachers focused more on publishing/perishing than teaching Self-fulfilling prophecies that math is difficult, boring, unpopular or not your subject Textbooks and curriculums more concerned with profits and test results than insight

A Mathematicians Lament [pdf] is an excellent essay on this issue that resonated with many people:

if I had to design a mechanism for the express purpose of destroying a childs natural curiosity and love of pattern-making, I couldnt possibly do as good a job as is currently being done I simply wouldnt have the imagination to come up with the kind of senseless, soul-crushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics education.
Imagine teaching art like this: Kids, no fingerpainting in kindergarten. Instead, lets study paint chemistry, the physics of light, and the anatomy of the eye. After 12 years of this, if the kids (now teenagers) dont hate art already, they may begin to start coloring on their own. After all, they have the rigorous, testable fundamentals to start appreciating art. Right? Poetry is similar. Imagine studying this quote (formula):

This above all else: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as night follows day, thou canst not then be false to any man. William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Its an elegant way of saying be yourself (and if that means writing irreverently about math, so be it). But if this were math class, wed be counting the syllables, analyzing the iambic pentameter, and mapping out the subject, verb and object. Math and poetry are fingers pointing at the moon. Dont confuse the finger for the moon. Formulas are a means to an end, a way to express a mathematical truth. Weve forgotten that math is about ideas, not robotically manipulating the formulas that express them.

Ok bub, whats your great idea?

Feisty, are we? Well, heres what I wont do: recreate the existing textbooks. If you need answers right away for that big test, theres plenty of websites, class videos and 20-minute sprints to help you out. Instead, lets share the core insights of calculus. Equations arent enough I want the aha! moments that make everything click. Formal mathematical language is one just one way to communicate. Diagrams, animations, and just plain talkin can often provide more insight than a page full of proofs.

But calculus is hard!

I think anyone can appreciate the core ideas of calculus. We dont need to be writers to enjoy Shakespeare. Its within your reach if you know algebra and have a general interest in math. Not long ago, reading and writing were the work of trained scribes. Yet today that can be handled by a 10-year old. Why? Because we expect it. Expectations play a huge part in whats possible. So expect that calculus is just another subject. Some people get into the nitty-gritty (the writers/mathematicians). But the rest of us can still admire whats happening, and expand our brain along the way. Its about how far you want to go. Id love for everyone to understand the core concepts of calculus and say whoa.

So whats calculus about?

Some define calculus as the branch of mathematics that deals with limits and the differentiation and integration of functions of one or more variables. Its correct, but not helpful for beginners. Heres my take: Calculus does to algebra what algebra did to arithmetic.

Arithmetic is about manipulating numbers (addition, multiplication, etc.).

Algebra finds patterns between numbers: a2 + b2 = c2 is a famous relationship, describing the sides of a right triangle. Algebra finds entire sets of numbers if you know a and b, you can find c.

Calculus finds patterns between equations: you can see how one equation (circumference = 2 * pi * r) relates to a similar one (area = pi * r2 ).

Using calculus, we can ask all sorts of questions:

How does an equation grow and shrink? Accumulate over time? When does it reach its highest/lowest point? How do we use variables that are constantly changing? (Heat, motion, populations, ). And much, much more!

Algebra & calculus are a problem-solving duo: calculus finds new equations, and algebra solves them. Like evolution, calculus expands your understanding of how Nature works.

An Example, Please
Lets walk the walk. Suppose we know the equation for circumference (2*pi*r) and want to find area. What to do? Realize that a filled-in disc is like a set of Russian dolls.

Here are two ways to draw a disc:

Make a circle and fill it in Draw a bunch of rings with a thick marker

The amount of space (area) should be the same in each case, right? And how much space does a ring use? Well, the very largest ring has radius r and a circumference 2 * pi * r. As the rings get smaller their circumference shrinks, but it keeps the pattern of 2 * pi * current radius. The final ring is more like a pinpoint, with no circumference at all.

Now heres where things get funky. Lets unroll those rings and line them up. What happens?

We get a bunch of lines, making a jagged triangle. But if we take thinner rings, that triangle becomes less jagged (more on this in future articles).

One side has the smallest ring (0) and the other side has the largest ring (2 * pi * r) We have rings going from radius 0 to up to r. For each possible radius (0 to r), we just place the unrolled ring at that location.

The total area of the ring triangle = 1/2 base * height = 1/2 * r * (2 * pi * r) = pi * r2, which is the formula for area!

Yowza! The combined area of the rings = the area of the triangle = area of circle! This was a quick example, but did you catch the key idea? We took a disc, split it up, and put the segments together in a different way. Calculus showed us that a disc and ring are intimately related: a disc is really just a bunch of rings. This is a recurring theme in calculus: Big things are made from little things. And sometimes the little things are easier to work with.

A note on examples
Many calculus examples are based on physics. Thats great, but it can be hard to relate: honestly, how often do you know the equation for velocity for an object? Less than once a week, if that. I prefer starting with physical, visual examples because its how our minds work. That ring/circle thing we made? You could build it out of several pipe cleaners, separate them, and straighten them into a crude triangle to see if the math really works. Thats just not happening with your velocity equation.

A note on rigor (for the math geeks)

I can feel the math pedants firing up their keyboards. Just a few words on rigor. Did you know we dont learn calculus the way Newton and Leibniz discovered it? They used intuitive ideas of fluxions and infinitesimals which were replaced with limits because Sure, it works in practice. But does it work in theory?. Weve created complex mechanical constructs to rigorously prove calculus, but have lost our intuition in the process. Were looking at the sweetness of sugar from the level of brain-chemistry, instead of recognizing it as Natures way of saying This has lots of energy. Eat it.

I dont want to (and cant) teach an analysis course or train researchers. Would it be so bad if everyone understood calculus to the non-rigorous level that Newton did? That it changed how they saw the world, as it did for him? A premature focus on rigor dissuades students and makes math hard to learn. Case in point: e is technically defined by a limit, but the intuition of growth is how it was discovered. The natural log can be seen as an integral, or the time needed to grow. Which explanations help beginners more? Lets fingerpaint a bit, and get into the chemistry along the way.

Where next?
My goal is to begin presenting a beautiful, oft-maligned subject in a new light. Many ideas are more intuitive than you think:

Averages Pythagorean Theorem Imaginary Numbers Div, Grad, Flux and Curl (if you already know vector calculus)

My knowledge of calculus is still very mechanical, but I know this can change. As I explore this topic Ill cover the insights that worked, hoping youll chime in with what has helped you. Heres the first:

Prehistoric Calculus: Discovering Pi

Happy math. (PS: A kind reader has created an animated powerpoint slideshow that helps present this idea more visually. Thanks!)

Other Posts In This Series

1. A Gentle Introduction To Learning Calculus (This post) 2. Prehistoric Calculus: Discovering Pi 3. Learning Calculus: Overcoming Our Artificial Need for Precision 4. Why Do We Need Limits and Infinitesimals?

5. A Friendly Chat About Whether 0.999... = 1 6. A Calculus Analogy: Integrals as Multiplication 7. Calculus: Building Intuition for the Derivative 8. Understanding Calculus With A Bank Account Metaphor 9. How To Understand Derivatives: The Product, Power & Chain Rules 10. How To Understand Derivatives: The Quotient Rule, Exponents, and Logarithms

7 Category: Calculus, Guides, Math

Share what worked: Aha moments & FAQ

Let's create a living reference for how best to understand this topic.

The circle being unraveled and reassembled into a triangle. (More...)

6 18

by Josie full discussion page I knew circles and triangles were related, because my Geometry teacher told us they were, but..... That makes sense! Kalid Thanks Josie, seeing it unrolled was my big aha! too. Ben It's maybe a little outside the scope of the discussion, but what struck me about the circle -> triangle transformation was how elegantly it shows the superiority of tau as the circle constant. Typically, pi*r^2 is trotted out as the example of why circumference over diameter is preferable to circumference over radius, but that triangle just screams to me "I am half of a rectangle!" Kalid

Great point Ben! Ralph Brilliant, simple and fun explanation! It made me get up and walk around the room, beaming from ear to ear! Aha! kalid Awesome, so glad to hear... those are my favorite eureka moments! :) Zubair Wow nice topic..enjoying entire topic..!!
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seeing the graph and relating that to the are of he triangle

16

by pax full discussion page Your name bruce how simple life could be if everything was explained as simply
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"A premature focus on rigor dissuades students and makes math hard to learn." A ton of truth/insight packed into that well-articulated sentence. 13

by Charlie Flowers full discussion page

kalid Awesome, glad it clicked. To crib a programming phrase, premature rigor is the root of teaching evil.
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Two insights from elsewhere that helped me (More...)

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by Charlie Flowers full discussion page Two insights from elsewhere that helped me were: 1. Sylvanus P Thompson wrote about a person climbing a graph and said something to the effect that "he feels a particular steepness ... can we find out what it is"? Made the goal very concrete and intuitive. 1. When I realized that the function we were trying to find the slope of actually fully contains all the "knowledge" of every point that will be on the graph, and therefore, it already "contains" the "knowledge" of the "steepness" at every point. In fact, it contains the knowledge of how that steepness changes. And it became intuitive that the slope should be a "simpler" version of the original function itself that is "derived" from it. I wonder if that has anything to do with the terminology of "taking a derivative", but I have no idea whether it does. Great site, thanks for publishing this material! kalid Thanks Charlie, love the specifics about what's working. 2. Having a visceral experience of "steepness" is really cool, I like that. I'm almost feeling my stomach change by thinking about climbing a steep staircase.

3. Yes, all the knowledge is really linked. My analogy: If you know someone's bank account, you can monitor it and figure out their monthly income. And if you're monitoring their income, you can then figure out if they've received a raise. And if you know the raise is tied to the performance of the company, you can then figure out the performance of the company... all from looking at their bank account! Each step is "simpler", i.e. the bank account has the raw data, and each level has a slightly simpler look. Thanks for the support!
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the uncurling of the circle

by fred stelwagen full discussion page

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Aha! The insight that helped w as:

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251 thoughts on A Gentle Introduction To Learning Calculus

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1. Paul on May 2, 2008 at 12:43 pm said: Sign me up! I did all that crazy area under the curve stuff at school, but never understood how it REALLY worked. y=2x^2 => dy/dx = 4xsure, but what the heck is going on. They lost me when the sines and cosines joined the calculus party. Ive nevertheless remained interested in maths over the 20 years since, and heres the crack: your article is brilliant. I can absolutely get what youre talking about. Your circle example is dynamite, and I also found the idea that calculus finds patterns between equations very intuitive. Now let me remember, my little equation is differentiation. Thats like taking pi.r^2 back to 2pi.r So what you showed was integration; which makes sense to me as you did take the area under a curve. So, to differentiate pi.r^2 I dont ask for dy/dx, but rather something/dr I dont see any other letter, an pi is just a number, so maybe the use of y is just convention? Sody/dr? Keep up the good work.

2. Mike on May 2, 2008 at 12:50 pm said: Beautiful commentary. Im currently taking Calculus III, and have already finished Differential Equations. For my degree, these would be the final mathematics courses I would need. However, recently Ive felt that its all starting to make sense and come together, and Ive found that mathematics is quite elegant. After a certain point, I dont feel awed by its complexity, but rather its simplicity. How an incredibly seemingly complex relationship can be broken down into a symbolically simple idea is truly beautiful. Ive decided to continue taking some mathematics courses in my next semester, and see how far I want to go in that direction. It really is a shame that the way mathematics is presented creates a negative impression from grade school on. Conceptually, it is beautiful and elegant and explanatory and all-encompassing. If I had been introduced to mathematics in that form when I was younger, I would have probably been hooked then. My favorite moments in horrible math classes in high school and junior high would be when the teacher would digress and just talk about the nature of zero or infinity or other interesting concepts. Of course, the teacher would usually end with something like, Well, anyway, to get back on topic and resume with some cumbersome proof. Im not saying that a conceptual presentation of mathematics should precede basic grade school necessities like arithmetic, but it should definitely have its place. By misrepresenting the elegant nature of mathematics, we are restricting students who would otherwise begin to take interest. Again, great article! 3. Jesse Farmer on May 2, 2008 at 12:51 pm said: I like these sorts of examples for people who have never seen calculus before because, honestly, the subject is not that hard. Give me an above-average student and I can teach them the basics of calculus in less than a week. But its rarely the basics that get people. These methods, after all, were how calculus developed up into the mid-19th century nary a delta or an epsilon in sight.

Euler was the master of these types of proofs. It wasnt until mathematicians like Weierstra started getting counter-intuitive results with these so-called intuitive methods that they decided an absolutely rigorous foundation for calculus (and all of mathematics) was necessary. So, the only caveat is that while these methods might be intuitive and help people just learning calculus, there are limits at which this type of reasoning breaks down and we simply cant reconcile what is true with what our intuition says is true. 4. Prateek Sharma on May 2, 2008 at 12:57 pm said: Dude, you rock! Being an Engineer, I understand the pain a naive student goes through when he is burdened with truck load of Calculus books having tons of theorems, proofs and unimaginable number of weird questions that have absolutely no relevance to the real world! I scored well in my engineering mathematic subjects but I never really understood the point of learning that stuff. Heck, I dont even remember half of it now. I wish we had someone like you who could paint such a wonderful picture and make the subject more relevant to students. I look forward to whatever article you come up with next in the series. God Bless You! (BTW, where are you from? I wud love to meet a genius like you sometime!) 5. Justin on May 2, 2008 at 1:30 pm said: I just wanted to say Ive been reading your blog for some time now, but I just had to let you know every article is great and very informative, I just wish you wrote more often =) (j/k I know it must be a lot of time to put together these articles, but thanks again!) 6. James on May 2, 2008 at 2:16 pm said:

This was just great. Now can someone out there with the requisite skills (I dont have them) *please* make the circle into triangle thing into a video and post a link to youtube? 7. Rodrigo on May 2, 2008 at 2:16 pm said: You said: Instead, lets share the core insights of calculus. Equations arent enough I want the aha! moments that make everything click. Amen! Those aha! moments make live worth living (or math worth learning )

8. x on May 2, 2008 at 2:51 pm said: [...] they decided an absolutely rigorous foundation for calculus (and all of mathematics) was necessary Well they may have decided that, but they failed. No mathematical system is absolutely perfect. There are always holes to poke. This is the essence of Gdels work. Your system will never be rigorous enough to always be right, but it might be rigorous enough to work for the problems you care about. 9. Kalid on May 2, 2008 at 3:01 pm said: Wow, thanks for the comments guys! @Paul: You got it we were essentially integrating the equation for circumference. But if you call it that from the outset, and define it rigorously, peoples eyes will glaze over .

And as you said, the use of x (input) and y (output) are conventions. So the regular way would be to say the equation is really 2 * pi * x, where x is the radius (never mind that we always learned it as 2 * pi * r). dy/dr is a perfectly fine way of saying it too. One interesting thing about integration is seeing how something that doesnt look like a curve (a bunch of rings) can be twisted into a format that does. @Mike: Thanks for the awesome comment! You really nailed it, there are such beautiful ideas buried in math, which could really encourage people, but dont have a chance because we jump into the details.

Conceptual discussions & drills have their place. It may be like listening to fun music (rock, rap, etc.) and being inspired to play. Then you start learning an instrument and memorize scales (doing drills). Drills are much more manageable when you have an appreciation for why youre doing them. Those side discussions you mention can be awesome it highlights the discovery side of math. For every equation, there was someone seeing it for the first time and saying whoa. @Jesse: Thats a very good point. I see it similar to teaching Physics: we start with Newtonian mechanics, which are intuitive to a degree. Then, as people advance, we teach them about the exceptions: strange things happen at the speed of light (relativity) and when you get really small (quantum mechanics). But if we started off with relativity and quantum wed lose everyone along the way. @Prateek: Thanks for the kind words! Just a curious learner here. I know what you mean Ive taken many math classes, but the formulas just seemed to stay there, and didnt really change how I viewed the world. Im usually in the Boston or Seattle area, and if youre around feel free to drop me an email (kalid@instacalc.com). @Justin: Thank you for the kind words, that really means a lot. Yeah, I wish I posted more frequently too .

The articles can be time consuming (10-15 hours) but I think my brain is the bottleneck procrastination, perfectionism, and sometimes its a struggle to have a good enough insight (I dont want to rewrite whats already on wikipedia). Maybe I can find a way to trick myself into writing more . @James: That would be awesome. Unfortunately I dont have any animation skills either. @Rodrigo: I agree math would be a boring place if it was only about pushing numbers around 10. Kalid on May 2, 2008 at 3:02 pm said: .

@x: You hit the nail on the head. Math, at its core, depends on unprovable axioms and assumptions at some point you have to say this seems to work, its good enough, lets run with it. Unfortunately the quest to make calculus rigorous turned it into something which isnt as easily understood for beginners. 11. Zac on May 2, 2008 at 7:19 pm said: This is something Ive learned from my quite limited independent study of calculus, which is my personal way of looking at it: calculus is all about how things change. The derivative is one tiny change, and the integral is the sum of many tiny changes. That explanation works quite well, to me, for setting up equations that use calculus. It also makes the fundamental theorem of calculus very simple to understand. I have to agree about math education; Im reminded every day that there are people intelligent enough to understand math who dont get it because its not explained in a way that makes sense intuitively. It wasnt even until about a year or two ago that I started to really understand math and not just use the equations I was given. Im sick of the way the education system teaches math, so much that Ive considered writing a textbook in the style I think math should be taught. To me, its simple: learn the way that it was originally discovered. It was discovered through intuition, and thats the best way to learn it. Ill cut short my rambling here. Ive given you too much to read as it is. 12. Kalid on May 2, 2008 at 9:37 pm said: Hi Zac, thanks for the comment. Yep, seeing the derivative and integral that way (in terms of changes) can really give an intuitive feel and the fundamental theorem becomes that much clearer. I agree with you about math education I think many people are capable of learning the subject, but its not presented in the best way. We tend to show the final result without all the steps along the way and those steps are what build intuition. It surprises me that people dont often write about their own insights (vs. formulas), so just trying to take a stab at it. Always appreciate an interesting discussion!

13. Viru on May 2, 2008 at 11:11 pm said: Another good explanation. Thanks Kalid. 14. Kalid on May 2, 2008 at 11:28 pm said: Youre welcome Viru, glad you enjoyed it. 15. Doug Hogg on May 3, 2008 at 1:51 am said: Hi, Wow! You have communicated a beautiful simplicity. I have several books on calculus (Calculus for Dummys, Math for the Millions, etc. etc.never was able to read them) but your explanation is what I have needed all these years. Congratulations, and thanks. Doug Hogg Former Prinicpal of Pinewood Academy P.S. Since it only communicates to people who know calculus, I think you could leave this line out: Id feel I cheated if I called calculus the study of limits, derivatives, integrals, and infinite series. 16. Mark on May 3, 2008 at 6:12 am said: You know why sugar and fat taste sweet (encourage consumption of high-calorie foods in times of scarcity). Sounds like just as strong an argument for Creation if you ask me! Sugar and fat are provided to aid survival, and our bodies are designed to make use of them in an optimum way. Sweet fruits encourage consumption and hence spreading of seeds for survival; sounds like a good plan to me. I enjoy your articles, but weakly weaving religion into an article on math is unnecessary and, frankly, I didnt think it was your style. 17. Kat on May 3, 2008 at 6:36 am said:

I have always, ALWAYS hated math. Im actually pretty decent at it when I understand it, but it is such a painful process to get to where I understand it that by the time I do, Im sick of it and dont want to do it anymore. I would be so much better at it if I bothered to practice it, but I hate it so much that I dont WANT to practice it. Im in my first year of college, and the placement test put me in trigonometry (I dont know how, because I only made it through a year and a half of high school algebra before I gave up), but I only have to take college algebra to transfer, so thats what Im going to do next fall because it stands a chance of not making me crazy. But reading this postwell, it kind of made me want to learn how to like math. It made me CURIOUS about numbers, which has honestly never happened before. The rings-into-triangle thing was the biggest AHA! moment Ive ever had regarding math. It made sense, so I liked it. (I like things when I understand them, see. Like, solving gigantic equations is ridiculously fun, because I know how to do it.) Anyway. I am rambling. But thank you, thank you! I feel like theres a glimmer of hope that I might be able to get a handle on math if I just look at it differently. I never thought of it being ideas; it was just brain-numbing formula memorisation until now. And I hate it when Im unable to do something, so I really would love to be able to do math and not excuse myself by saying it isnt my subject. Your definition of calculus made so much more sense than the ones Ive heard. 18. Zack on May 3, 2008 at 11:18 am said: @Mark 2nd Paragraph: Calculus relates topics in an elegant, brain-bending manner. My closest analogy is Darwins Theory of Evolution: once understood, you start seeing Nature in terms of survival. You understand why drugs create stronger germs (survival of the fittest). You know why sugar and fat taste sweet (encourage consumption of high-calorie foods in times of scarcity). It all fits together. I guess I dont see where Kalid is weakly weaving religion into an article on math. Or was your comment meant to be taken sarcastically? 19. Kalid on May 3, 2008 at 5:37 pm said:

@Doug: Thanks for the note, Im glad you found it helpful! Good point on the note I changed the wording a bit. It makes me chuckle when I see complex subjects (calculus) explained in terms of other complex subjects (limits, integrals, etc.), without at least _some_ plain-english explanation. How is a beginner looking up what calculus means supposed to have an idea of what it does? @Mark: Im not sure I understand the connection to creation the goal was to use evolution as an example of a simple, unifying theory that can explain a lot of natural behavior. Animals that hated sugar, fat and other high-calorie foods probably starved when times were tough. But their siblings with a sweet tooth probably survived, which selected for that trait. Evolutionary pressure gives an explanation of why sugar would seem sweet to us today (Im not a biologist, there may be other reasons too). Anyway, the point is that calculus finds similar connections/underlying themes between math there are nice (simple) reasons why the formulas are linked. Without calculus, the similarity in the equations just looks like a happy coincidence, much like sugar is sweet and spoiled food tastes bad might seem like a lucky coincidence without the theory of evolution. Hope this helps clarify what I meant. @Kat: Thats awesome! I love getting those aha moments and Im happy you were able to get excited about calculus ideas (its a rare thing in this day and age). You definitely can get a handle on math I really believe its a skill like writing. Once upon a time, everyone thought reading & writing were hard and only for scribes; today everyone does it. The hardest part about math can be staying interested and keeping your motivation, so hang in there! Seeing it as just another way to talk about an idea can help get the big picture. And youre right, when you get it, even solving gigantic equations can be fun 20. Mark on May 3, 2008 at 6:38 pm said: @Kalid: .

Your implication appears to be that evolution is THE theory that provides the aha level of understanding the natural world. Yet the example you provided is just as easily explained by creation. It came off a bit preachy to me and detracted from an otherwise well-written article. 21. Paul on May 3, 2008 at 9:03 pm said: I always wanted to learn this calculus stuff. Tho I seemed to have survived the last 40 years of electronics and computer theory without it, Ive always had a curiosity about just what all those squiggly lines were on the old chalk boards. I think you have succeeded in clearing up some of the fog. (so far so good anyway) Please keep up the good work you have been doing on this web site. I really have enjoyed all of your articles. 22. Kalid on May 4, 2008 at 11:45 am said: @Mark: Point taken, and happy for the discussion. I think the key point behind it all is that the sweetness of sugar serves a purpose (to help us survive) but if we dont notice this underlying theme then we miss many of connections that exist in the real world. @Paul: Thanks for dropping in, and for your comment! Glad to make things clearer as I can the funny thing is that despite using the squiggly lines many times, they tended to stay in the realm of abstract symbols without much inherent meaning. So Im trying to go back and relearn the stuff with the viewpoint of it has to mean something!. Ill keep writing as best I can 23. Grey on May 4, 2008 at 5:43 pm said: Absolutely magnificent. One of the best things Ive ever stumbled upon. The analogy with finger painting only after learning chemistry/physics/anatomy is so very accurate. Keep it up!! 24. Kalid on May 4, 2008 at 8:45 pm said: Thanks Grey, Im thrilled you enjoyed it so much! Yes, not letting people fingerpaint (with the absence of tests & grades) can destroy a childs interest in a subject. Drill & kill, Ive heard it been called. 25. Derive Host on May 4, 2008 at 10:28 pm said: .

Many Thanks for Sharing, such a valuable information. Best Regards Team Web Hosting Sri Lanka 26. Martin on May 5, 2008 at 12:35 am said: Hi Kalid, Ive been waiting for this article/series about calculus for few months since started reading your blog. I tried to learn calculus myself few times. Ive learned something I knew how to compute some simple examples but Ive been missing that Aha moments so much. So Ive decided that Ill wait until you start to write about the calculus, since you explained so well every area you wrote about so far (exponential functions, natural log, complex numbers, ) and in the meantime Ill spend my math time in other areas. Im very lucky that I did such choice. Your article is, as always, so enlightening and clear. Im very happy to have such a great math teacher! material. Also, I would like to mention the book by Keith Devlin, The Language of Mathematics: Making the Invisible Visible, which actually brings me to the interest in math, one or two years ago. Without that book I would probably not read this blog and would not believe in my bright math days So for Thanks you so much for such

others asking Why Math? or searching for a lot of Aha! moments, the Keiths book is great reading during waiting for next Kalids article 27. Kalid on May 5, 2008 at 11:34 am said: @Martin: Thank you for the wonderful comment Im glad youre finding the articles helpful! Ill try to keep them that way .

Thanks for the book recommendation, Ill need to check that out. Im always interested in resources that can help people understand & appreciate math more. 28. Pham on May 6, 2008 at 10:06 am said: WOW.

amazing stuff, when you first told me you were going to write an article how real world calculus I thought itd be a stretch. this was very impressive, and made it easy to understand. I like your approach, I used to learn very complex subjects by picking up the kids editions of things, it gave me the 80% i needed to know to be able to converse in very little time. nice job. 29. Paul on May 7, 2008 at 1:44 am said: Its Paul from comment #1 again. Thanks for the reply Kalid. Again, the article is brilliant. I wonder, does the triangle analogy also work with squares instead of discs? If the side length is x, the perimeter is 4x. I apply your awesome triangle procedure and get (1/2).x.4x which is 2x^2; but I was hoping for x^2. Best wishes, Paul 30. Kalid on May 7, 2008 at 1:08 pm said: @Pham: Thanks man, glad you enjoyed it . Yeah, its funny how explaining stuff for kids can force

you to distill all the mumbo-jumbo into its most basic elements (and therefore making it more clear for everyone). @Paul: Thanks for dropping by. Thats a great question I think using a square should work. The tricky part is that even with square rings, we only want to take the radius (x/2). Looking at the jagged triangle, you can see how you could bend the sides all the way around to make a circle. Thus, were only measuring the outward distance from the center, since the perimeter wraps around. Similarly for the square, you can imagine that were bending the jagged triangle into 4 corners we move from the center to the right side, but the height of each line can wrap around the entire square. So we only go from 0 to x/2. The equation turns into (1/2)(base)(height) = (1/2)*(x/2)*(4x) = x^2.

Hope this makes sense, I had to think about it for a bit. I think its weird because we arent used to talking about the radius of a square. 31. Interested Reader on May 8, 2008 at 8:21 am said: Keep up the fantastic maths analysis. Your diagramatic, pictoral explanations should be taught around the world. 32. Kalid on May 8, 2008 at 11:15 pm said: Many thanks, glad you enjoyed it! 33. Ferenc on May 11, 2008 at 2:02 pm said: Another great article from a great writer. 34. Kalid on May 11, 2008 at 5:38 pm said: Hi Ferenc, thanks for the support! 35. Goldust on May 11, 2008 at 9:35 pm said: Amazing! Four semesters of mind-numbing calculus in engineering and I was blown away by the circle triangle example. Never really looked at such a basic relation in this light! Cant wait for more! 36. Kalid on May 11, 2008 at 9:46 pm said: Awesome, glad it helped you! I know what you mean sometimes we get stuck in the nitty-gritty of integrals and derivatives that we dont realize that calculus was buried inside the formulas we learned in middle school .

37. Richard Bash on May 12, 2008 at 8:16 pm said: One of the things that I have tried to encourage engineers and mathematicians to do is to tell things to me as though I were 8 years old. Youve done that here and I am a wee bit wiser for it. Nothing is difficult if the teacher cares enough to make it simple. Congratulations for a [formerly] calculus-shy lawyer.

38. Kalid on May 12, 2008 at 9:12 pm said: Hi Richard, glad you found it useful! The funny thing is that many engineers & mathematicians would prefer the 8-year old version too! Many people end up learning the mechanics but not the insight of the operations. Thanks again for the comment. 39. Vasanth on May 13, 2008 at 10:30 pm said: Kalid, Thanks for such a wonderful article. So far I have never understood maths the way it needs to be understood. Your article was enlightening. I also appreciate your efforts in replying to each of the comments. My wish is that you write a book on Maths in Simple & easy to understand way and i would definitely recommend it. Many Thanks Again. 40. Kalid on May 14, 2008 at 12:34 am said: Hi Vasanth, thanks for the message . I think math can be understood a variety of ways (intuitively,

mechanically, etc.) and you need them all to have a good grasp. Usually, though, we only focus on the mechanical aspects. On the book, I think it would be a great idea. Currently Im looking into collecting these pages and organizing them into a series. Maybe after I get a few calculus posts under my belt 41. Kai on May 14, 2008 at 5:21 pm said: Ive been reading your blog for months now, and I think everything you write is well thought out, informative, and above all, interesting! Calculus was by far my favorite math subject. I had so many a-ha! moments that I felt like the world was different after I learned it. I think it would be great if in a follow-up article you discuss the relationship between velocity and acceleration. In this modern world theres so many everyday analogies to be made, and I think determining the rate of change of a rate of change is something that is easily overlooked, yet so .

elegant once you realize it. It might also be too simple for your blog, but Id love to see a Kalid explanation for it! Another related topic I think would be simple yet interesting is events happening in instantaneous vs discrete time, although personally I cant think of any good examples for that. I just remember how shocked I was that we could determine an objects velocity at any given instant and totally remove change in time from the equation, yet it is still inherently dependent on time! 42. Kalid on May 14, 2008 at 10:29 pm said: Hi Kai, thanks for the message! Im glad youre enjoying the articles, I really believe that there are interesting nuggets in any subject sometimes we just have to dig for them .

I think the relationship of acceleration to velocity is a good one, Im thinking about how best to present it. Even in a car, you dont set your *speed* you push down the gas or brake, which accelerates you, which changes your velocity, which changes your distance. So really, the distance you travel is ultimately a function of where your foot is on the pedal. I think itd be an interesting topic no subject is too simple .

The use of instantaneous rates is intriguing as well, Im trying to figure out the best way to approach the limit concept. Its essentially a machination from the 1800s to deal with infinitely small changes/infinitesimals which had been used intuitively before then. Again, a topic that will need a bit of thinking. Thanks again for the comment! 43. Sarnath on May 15, 2008 at 5:26 am said: Did you know we dont learn calculus the way Newton and Leibniz discovered it? I have often thought about this one.. Thanks! 44. Paul on May 15, 2008 at 6:05 am said:

Hi, Id like to first congratulate on that example. And Id like to point out that thats the first time ive seen that, or anything like that, witch should be mind bogling since im a seniour student in a technical college and my knowledge of math and physics is way above that of the average layman. I have my own example of math being tought moronically. I remember once when our high school physics teacher asked us what was the integral(antiderivative) of 1/VdV(the work being done in an isothermal transformation), and no one had a clue, witch was rather odd given that we were pretty good at math, and all of us knew the antiderivative for 1/xdx however the antiderivative of 1/VdV, was a whole together diferent story. 45. Kalid on May 15, 2008 at 7:46 pm said: @Sarnath: Yes, I consider it ironic that Newton probably wouldnt recognize calculus as we teach it today .

@Paul: Thanks for the message. Yep, sometimes we get so deep into the nitty-gritty that we forget how calculus can help us see relationships between everyday equations. And sometimes we get sidetracking when a variable is replaced 46. Jeff on May 16, 2008 at 10:35 pm said: I StumbledUpon this a few days ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it! I had, especially in retrospect, a great calculus teacher in high school. We learned a lot of the intuitive aspects of the subject, but at the time I didnt realize how unusual and great that was! Unfortunately, it been a long time, and Ive forgotten a lot. Thanks for publishing this explanation, it makes me want to revisit the subject! But the real reason Im posting is because of what Mark said in the comments above. I wasnt going to say anything, because religion vs science arguments belong in a different forum, and I felt it was very big of Kalid to say, @Mark: Point taken, and happy for the discussion. And then he very deftly sidestepped the whole subject and restated his original point without the offending reference to scientific theory. It was definitely a very mature way of handling an immature poster, and Im hesitant to re-open the subject. However, it really bothers me that we tend to treat these pushy religious types as if their theories of the origin of life and the origin of the universe deserve respect, or as if theyre harmless. Now people will always believe crazy things, and thats fine. But a lot of these people are making an organized, .

concerted effort to undermine human progress, and with our ecosystem in such a delicate position, we as humans cant afford to let them. I enjoy your articles, but weakly weaving religion into an article on math is unnecessary and, frankly, I didnt think it was your style. The first word or concept on the page having anything to do with religion is in Marks previous paragraph, when he brings up Creation. Apparently, Mark is saying that the theory of evolution is a religion. The simple fact that he believes this shows how ignorant we can be if we hold false beliefs. Ignorance is often very dangerous. Especially widespread ignorance. This also shows how rude and pushy these religious types can be, while making it seem as if we are slighting them, by (in this case) not making allowances for somebodys random, wacky religious beliefs in a discussion about math. Your implication appears to be that evolution is THE theory . . . Just as the theory of gravity is THE theory we have to explain the observable fact that gravity exists, the theory of evolution by natural selection is THE theory that explains the observable fact that evolution exists. There are no others. Go ahead, try and name one. But remember, in order to qualify as a theory, it must explain the available evidence, and it must make predictions which are testable. In other words, it must be refutable. Otherwise, it is not a theory. It came off a bit preachy to me. This is so ridiculous I just had to include it. Sorry. It would make me laugh if it didnt make me lose so much hope for our future. I just think that the most important way to combat the kind of ignorance that leads to the election of incompetent public officials is to combat ignorance whenever we encounter it in our daily lives. Sort of a think globally, act locally plan. Now this post really is preachy! Sorry, Kalid. Now Ive had my say, Ill leave it alone. I Promise. 47. Gabe Murchison on May 17, 2008 at 2:51 pm said: I have to disagree with you on your Shakespeare example. Sure, it gets at the idea be yourself, but theres a reason Shakespeare didnt just say be yourself. The Shakespeare quote is beautiful, and to figure out why, we can diagram the sentence, figure out the meter, look at word choice in short, figure out *why* it is beautiful. All of those components contribute to the way the sentence functions,

so its important to look at them. Theres a reason we dont read simplified, abridged, plain-language versions of Hamlet in English class! 48. Kelly on May 18, 2008 at 1:47 pm said: This is great! I flunked math all through high school and ended up doing basic math and algebra in a community college. I found a great teacher there who could turn the lessons around 180 and explain it so I could finally understand it. I found out I was a visual learner, but when I got to calculus class, it all fell apart again. I could understand the concepts I couldnt put together the equations. Funny thing is, I love numbers and thanks to Mechanical Universe, I like physics. I found a book called Physics Without Calculus and truly enjoyed it because I could see the problems. As soon as calculus was added, the pictures disappeared again. 49. darwin on May 19, 2008 at 10:02 am said: Hi, its probably not your favorite topic, but since you mention evolution, couldnt you write an article about it? So many people walk around and think they can argue against it, while the effects are so plain obvious. 50. wlid on May 19, 2008 at 5:37 pm said: excellent job on this one 51. Kalid on May 19, 2008 at 10:48 pm said: @Jeff: Thanks for the comment, glad you enjoyed the post! Yeah, mixing religion & science can be a touchy subject. To me, science is about knowledge and religion is about ethics, and you shouldnt use one to determine the other. I usually dont address it in posts since its unlikely for either person to change their opinion based on a few paragraphs on a website. In this particular example, Im not as interested in anyones reasons why something is so, as much as the effects (sugar/fat serve a higher purpose of encouraging survival). But great points .

@Gabe: Good point. I think the key is being able to appreciate the intricate structure _and_ the meaning (not just one or the other). Unfortunately, math education tends to focus on the former. @Kelly: Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! Yes, calculus can be visual and intuitive, but often its buried underneath a pile of equations. The equations are useful, but can be really dense without any kind of intuitive grasp (I had a similar experience with vector calculus it didnt really start making sense until I visualized it). Appreciate the book suggestion, Ill have to add this to the reading list. @darwin: It would be an interesting article, though Im currently not that well versed in the biological particulars . But yep, it would be cool as its a very powerful and far-reaching observation.

@wlid: Thanks, glad you liked it. 52. manu on May 21, 2008 at 4:21 am said: To start, forgive my english, its my third language. Ive always enjoyed math classes, I guess that Ive been lucky enough to have good teachers although they did use the conventional teaching system. The things is that the only way I could study math and remember formulas was to make sense of them. So, while others tried to memorize what formula and when to aply it I was trying to understand why that formula and why use it there. After a while I realized that studying math was quite enjoyable and easy if you went and understood what were you doing with the numbers. That was back in 9th grade. Its been more or less 7 years since that revelation was made and Im still studying math related degree, economics. Coming across this article has been interesting since it describes exactly what I felt back in that day, and even though its elemental math for me, its reminded me of the beauty that math has and I had forgotten with subjects like Econometrics and advanced statistics, cause if you dont go to class its very hard to internalize and understand huge formulas. LOL. But anyways. Very well written but most of all, I admire someone whos making this effort just for the sake of math and the bad name it has among the young, and I hope that many of them come across this to learn to see math with different eyes. Luck and thanks! Manu

Spain 53. Kalid on May 21, 2008 at 7:44 am said: Hi Manu, thanks for the message! Yes, Ive always enjoyed knowing the why not just the how unfortunately, for many students its not obvious that this understanding is important unless they stumble upon it themselves or their teacher encourages this line of thinking. Glad youve enjoyed the article .

54. tiny on May 21, 2008 at 9:37 pm said: I cant imagine how I did pass all my math subjects back in college. My professor presented the subject just the way you presented your circle-triangle area presentation. This is awesome. I love mathematics! 55. Kalid on May 22, 2008 at 5:06 pm said: Awesome, glad youre finding it useful .

56. Ferose Khan J on June 2, 2008 at 2:44 am said: Hi, I am an engineer by profession. I scored well in math during my school days and college days too(That is the beauty of current math education you can score well without understanding anything about solution). For nearly 12 years right from my higher secondary school to college, I have asked all my teachers why we should learn calculus and where we should apply it (The best ones gave the example of speed,velocity and accelaration nothing more than that). Others gave a list of formulas to memorize. I went through this article in your site and atlast found the answer. We are really blessed to have this internet,stumble and blog. God bless you. I have been searching through lots of books and lots of sites regarding calculus. But never had that A-ha moment. I had it when I read your article. I dont have words to explain my happiness. you have unwound a knot that was tied 12 years before. Thanks for all your effort keep up the good work.

With lots of love and respect, Ferose Khan J 57. Kalid on June 2, 2008 at 11:35 pm said: Hi Ferose, thank you for such a wonderful message! It means a lot that the article was able to help understand this subject I know what you mean about the memorization vs. understanding, I had plenty of cram and forget sessions in school. It just wasnt satisfying to manipulate the equations without knowing what they were really for. Again, Im really happy the article was able to help, Im planning on doing a series on calculus so I hope they are useful for you too! 58. Corey on June 5, 2008 at 12:31 am said: I very much enjoyed your article Kalid. As many posters have, I applaud your effort in sharing knowledge, and excitement about it, with others. But the real reason Im posting in a nutshell (I love those books) the greatest measure of intellect and knowledge is recognizing how much you dont know. Jeffs premise that ignorance=belief in creation and education=belief in the theory of evolution is belied by the fact that many of the most educated and intellectual people (including many, many scientists) do not believe in that theory. Einstein professed belief in intelligent design. And no matter what you may say when it comes to (as science likes to call it) first cause your mouths open and close as you stutter to say something but you have no coherence. I do appreciate your respect for other peoples opinions Kalid. I wish more people would realize how much claimed knowledge really is just opinion and more respect should be accorded. I also wish I didnt over-react to those that dont. Again, excellent article and I look forward to reading more from you. 59. Kalid on June 5, 2008 at 11:35 am said: Hi Corey, thanks for the comment, Im happy youre enjoying the article.

The question about ignorance and knowledge is a good one. In fact, I think an admission of ignorance is a prerequisite for understanding because everyone needs to accept the possibility that their current position may be flawed. Otherwise, wed still believe in a geocentric universe, chariots pulling the Sun, etc you cannot teach someone who thinks they already know. The primary difference, to me, is what constitutes the gap when we dont understand something, like the origin of the universe. Is the gap filled by something fundamentally unknowable (God, Nature, etc.), or is it just an idea we havent discovered yet, like gravity moving the planets? Thats more of a personal/philosophical question that isnt along the lines of what I discuss today, and unfortunately can lead to counter productive discussions (it can become a heated topic, and I dont know many people who said I drastically changed my opinion based on a comment I read online ). So, Im primarily interested in explaining what we currently understand, knowing it may not be complete (Newtonian Physics to Einsteins Physics to whatever comes next). However, weve got to start somewhere: All models are flawed, but some are useful. 60. Sbs Matematik on June 6, 2008 at 3:52 pm said: Great thx for pictures 61. Anonymous on June 9, 2008 at 7:47 pm said: lol i already love math, and this article just made me love it even more 62. Kalid on June 9, 2008 at 7:51 pm said: @Sbs: Glad you liked it. @Anonymous: Thats great! Yes, sometimes math can be really, really painful or really really fun Im trying to find ways to turn the former into the latter 63. Hank on June 10, 2008 at 11:48 pm said: . ..

I just finished reading both this article and the prehistoric calculus one on discovering pi, and I just have to say wow. Im recently finished with the 9th grade, and I do have to agree with what youve said on the majority of the math programs being taught today. I love math (yep, Im a math geek) but thats only because I always focus on the intuition of it. I absolutely hate having to memorize numbers of formulas, so instead I simply figure out why they work. The core ideas behind all of these discoveries just shed new light on how you view everything. I talk to a couple of kids in my math class, and the majority of them hate math, but if I ever try to get in deeper than the memorized formulas and ideas theyre taught to know and not really understand they never seem to have any idea whats going on beneath it all. I probably seem like Im rambling now, but thats because its 2:40 AM where I am, and Im pretty tired. Anyway, these two articles have been great, and Ive completely clicked on nearly everything youve said. I especially liked what you wrote about the epiphany like moments when you finally have an intuitive grasp over the concepts, because I end up having those a lot whenever Ive been thinking into an idea for a while. It was also pretty interesting looking through that proof of the area of a circle where the one I had learned was completely different. It had to do with the an equation of the area of a regular polygon with n sides (1/2 * perimeter * apothem) and if you imagined adding sides to a polygon until it was a circle, the apothem would the the radius, and the perimeter would be the circumference, and you plug that in and then you get pi*r^2. This was a pretty great find for such a late internet excursion, and I have to say Im looking forward to the next one, and have to ask whens it coming? 64. Kalid on June 11, 2008 at 11:18 am said: Hi Hank, thanks for the wonderful message! Im really impressed that youre searching for intuitive insights this early in school, as you mention most people just want to memorize the formula and move on. But that attitude will really help you in learning, so congratulations! Thats an interesting proof for the area as well one thing I like about math is that theres so many ways to understand the same result. So part of what I try to do is collect the various insights that

worked for me, since its not always explained in that way. I havent set a date on the next calculus article but would like to have it out in a week or two 65. Pirx on June 13, 2008 at 1:32 am said: To me it always seems as though creationists refute their own arguments. I enjoy finding these posts where they seem willing to talk more about their beliefs, letting us see more about the thought processes behind their opinions. Corey, when you say, I wish more people would realize how much claimed knowledge really is just opinion, who do you believe is claiming unsubstantiated facts? Is it the biologists, who consider any refutable theory that supports the observations? Or the creationists, who claim to know the designer of the universe, no matter what the observations might reveal? Which one of these (the biologist or the creationist) will readily tell you, as you suggest, the details of exactly how much they dont know about the origins of life? When you wrote, many of the most educated and intellectual people (including many, many scientists) do not believe in that theory, I found myself at first doubting your sincerity. This claim has been made in the past by some disreputable people, but has been thoroughly debunked. You probably are sincere, but just dont realize that you have been mislead. If you doubt this fact, I urge you to check out Project Steve, from the National Center for Science Education. Although the Discovery Institute has A PAGE of signatures from scientists of various qualifications, the statement they signed does not suggest that they do not believe in that theory. It is a vague, thick statement that does not include the word evolution, and states that study of Darwinian theory should be encouraged. Project Steve sets forth a very clear, unequivocal, concrete statement supporting evolution and specifically against Intelligent Design. The only people eligible to sign this statement are scientists named Steve. (This is estimated to be approximately one percent of all scientists who are eligible to sign this statement, should they choose.) To date there are EIGHT HUNDRED EIGHTY NINE signatures! When you say, Einstein professed belief in intelligent design, I suspect you are repeating fabricated talking points used in church groups to convince the believers that they are smart, and right. Albert Einstein wrote, The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless .

pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. He also wrote many other things expressing disdain for religion. And the phrase intelligent design is something the Discovery Institute just dreamed up recently, long after Einsteins death. Your point that very little is understood about first cause is of course true, and how exciting! There is so much left to learn! But clearly, the origin of life and the origin of the universe are completely different subjects (except to theists). Corey, I hope that you and everyone reading this can see that theres nothing wrong with being wrong. We are ALL wrong about many, many things. I myself have discovered I was completely wrong about some things which I was utterly sure of. Being mistaken, or wrong, or holding false beliefs is part of being human. The ability to RECOGNIZE our mistakes, and LEARN from them is perhaps our greatest strength as a species. It is also the basis of the scientific method. While I very much appreciate having my opinions respected, and living in a time and place that such a thing is possible, opinion really doesnt enter into evolution, or science in general, in a very significant way. Thats the beauty of it (in my opinion). Now Im sure that nothing I could possibly write here could change your beliefs, and that is as it should be. But in much the same way that what you wrote sparked an interest and a new understanding in myself, I hope that you can also derive some satisfaction from this submission. 66. Tushin on June 20, 2008 at 4:33 am said: in all mi internet travails i hav never found such a clean and easy to understand explanation of calculus! 67. Kalid on June 20, 2008 at 10:16 am said: @Pirx: Thanks for the eloquent comment. I agree my focus is understanding ideas via unambiguous, falsifiable theories that make testable predictions. People can believe what they like, but understanding the (currently known) mechanisms behind phenomena, such as evolution or gravity, helps understand more about the world. The orbits of the planets are not a mystery but follow a predictable pattern. And yep, a huge realization is knowing that

our understanding may not be fully correct will constantly improve actually, thats why I called this better explained not best explained @Tushin: Thanks! 68. MRW on June 22, 2008 at 8:38 am said: It seems that maths and science are taught in completely contrasting styles, as the article (which Id like to add was fantastic, I wish I was taught like this) and several posts point out. Science does teach complicated things in a historical fashion: In England at least, Bohrs outdated, yet simple, model of the atom is taught up to age 16, then 17-18 a summary version of the quantum atom is taught. I wish this was true for maths. 69. Kalid on June 22, 2008 at 10:03 am said: @MRW: Ah, thats a great insight. Yes, understanding the historical context can help refine understanding (similar for Newtons laws to relativity). The nice thing about math is that it never gets outdated or incorrect, better techniques just come along. So we can learn that Archimedes was developing ideas that led to the theory of Calculus, like Bohr made a model that led to quantum theory (it would be hard to jump from nothing to quantum theory, or from nothing to Calculus, but thats how its often taught!). Thanks for writing. 70. TJ on June 24, 2008 at 5:04 am said: Okay, I jumped to the comment section to leave a comment before reading the rest of your wonderful article. Sue me Im not particularly great at math, but far along enough to realize how stunningly beautiful the insights gained through math may be. I doubt much has changed since I was a student, and heres a little something every student should know. The educational system is generally not structured to teach you much of anything. It exists to discover and promote students with the promise to thrive in corporate ranks. Nothing more and nothing less. Really, When was the last time you heard the word entrepreneur mentioned in an educational setting? Think about it. .

71. Kalid on June 27, 2008 at 4:39 pm said: Hi TJ, thanks for the comment! Yes, unfortunately the educational system doesnt seem focused on real insights (more test memorization, which is quickly forgotten) and the reward system for professors in universities is not geared to reward the best teaches (publish or perish). This site is just my little candle in the darkness .

72. Brendan on August 4, 2008 at 4:39 am said: That was beautiful. You have no idea how much this has helped me. Thank you. 73. Kalid on August 4, 2008 at 1:55 pm said: Hi Brendan, thanks for the note always happy to help! 74. art on August 5, 2008 at 7:32 am said: too long 75. Hank on August 15, 2008 at 9:50 pm said: Still waiting for that next article. 76. Kalid on August 15, 2008 at 10:25 pm said: @art: 1600 words isnt that bad, is it? @Hank: Thanks for the encouragement, the next one is in the works as we speak 77. transpalet on August 20, 2008 at 12:21 am said: Beatiful post, thanks.. 78. Kalid on August 21, 2008 at 3:00 pm said: @transpalet: Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. !

79. Dave Anderson on August 23, 2008 at 4:56 pm said: Kalid You are a gifted teacher. Thanks for your clear, concise explanations. I plan to visit your site often. Dave Anderson 80. Tyler on September 16, 2008 at 7:44 am said: Kalid, you are the man. The first illustration is perfect for a beginner. Cheers mate. 81. Kalid on September 16, 2008 at 6:23 pm said: @Dave: Thank you for the kind words! Running the site is a lot of fun. @Tyler: Thanks for the feedback I was very surprised that this relationship between formulas we learned in Geometry wasnt shown until much later. Appreciate the comment. 82. resim on September 17, 2008 at 5:12 am said: thanks perfect article 83. ankastre on September 17, 2008 at 5:13 am said: great post, thank again plase 84. forex on September 19, 2008 at 1:35 am said: great post thank for information 85. haberler on October 16, 2008 at 6:13 am said: Thanks so much for that. 86. Ben Waldman on November 2, 2008 at 10:02 pm said:

the dissecting the circle proof of the area of a circle was published in the Talmud 1500 years ago in much the same way you describe here. 87. bryan on November 19, 2008 at 12:08 pm said: i have had these math courses in high school algebra 1,2 and geometry and in college i had stats and physics. i would like to start over so i can build on a strong foundation and eventually get to calc and other higher maths with the desire to career change from social services to perhaps actuarial science fields or strategic management. any suggestions as to where to begin again and what books can u suggest, specific authors. thanks for any help. 88. Kalid on November 23, 2008 at 5:45 pm said: @Ben: Interesting note! @Bryan: Thats great about revisiting. Unfortunately I dont have any specific book recommendations, but here are some people found helpful (comment #33): http://betterexplained.com/articles/how-to-develop-a-mindset-for-math/ In general I would suggest always looking for the big picture behind the concepts as they are presented. And always look for another explanation if the one in the book doesnt make sense. 89. NOXmoony on December 19, 2008 at 12:48 pm said: mahn..that was something!! awesome job Kalid and this article is just like so like the ones ive been searchin for all my life.. ahh great job mister, i wonder what youre doin though..are you a scientist or sth?

anyhoo..awesome article agon 90. Kalid on December 21, 2008 at 7:54 pm said:

@NOXmoony: Thanks, glad you liked it! Nope, not a scientist, currently working at a startup with friends .

91. Val on December 26, 2008 at 1:17 am said: Hi anh. Just finished reading this article. Really awesome!! I really like the big pictures that you put side-by-side together. Math sounds much more interesting the way you see it. I really wish I was taught by you in my previous math classes (or at least become my cute tutor). hee hee. And youre so right about the the velocity equation (I had to wiki it). I am similar to #2, where I get very intrigued by the root/origin of something rather than the nitty-gritty details (essential, yet difficult to grasp). Keep up the fantastic work! PS remind me to give you a relaxing massage whenever you write another article =) 92. Sreenath Chary on January 9, 2009 at 1:31 am said: This is one of the best readings I have done on Calculus in a long long time. I used to enjoy doing calculus when I was in collegenow I have a son who is in 10th grade and hates math. I just wanted to find out if there was a better way of getting him to understand the beauty of calculus.and your page is brilliant. Thank you very much for making this page! The aha value I got from seeing the Area of a circle derivedI wish you were my teacher when I was studying! I probably would be in academics instead of being a salesman! 93. Piers on January 17, 2009 at 5:00 am said: As soon as you said unroll the rings I got it, fucking brilliant! 94. Victor on January 26, 2009 at 6:48 am said: Amazing post. 95. Hang Time on February 2, 2009 at 2:20 pm said: Another great article keep on changing the world one article at a time.

And great points about motivation. Reminds me of my high school physics classone of the times I was most motivated was when I was trying to calculate Michael Jordans hang time when dunking from the free throw line. The interest in the subject comes first, the learning second. 96. Kalid on February 18, 2009 at 1:37 pm said: @Val: Thanks for the encouragement Em! @Sreenath: Youre welcome, Im really happy you were able to find the page useful and share it with your son. Its never too late to tinker around with numbers @Piers: Glad you enjoyed it. @Victor: Thanks. @Hang Time: Heh, Ill do what I can in my little corner of the net. I completely agree you can only push a rock uphill so long, when theres interest the learning comes easily. 97. Steve on February 18, 2009 at 9:28 pm said: Brilliant! I was just perusing Google for a quick refresher on elementary Calculus and this article came up. Never before have I heard such a clear and concise explanation of the fundamentals I seriously could have saved hours of hair-pulling in university had I had access to this article years ago. Keep up the fantastic explanations! 98. Kalid on February 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm said: @Steve: Thanks for the kind words and encouragement! I was in the same boat it was years after I learned Calculus until I started seeing what it was really about. And Im still finding out 99. aleemb on February 25, 2009 at 1:46 am said: Unroll the rings. This single picture if shown to students of Calculus would set off a lot of light bulbs. I saw that and I am still in awe of how simple it is. . .

Am also terribly peeved at the academia for sapping away the joy of mathematics and not providing more motivation. 100. Kalid on February 27, 2009 at 1:44 am said:

@aleemb: Thanks, really glad it clicked for you! Yes, its funny how a complex idea can just be unraveled when you look at it differently. 101. Deryk on March 7, 2009 at 5:31 pm said:

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_calculus is another excellent beginners article that is good companion to this article. 102. Shashank on March 18, 2009 at 11:16 pm said:

I recently read your article on calculus and it was amazing . Hats Off to you . While I was reading a book on Sir Issac Newton I found out about calculus . I wanted to learn about it so the very next day searched for it on the net and I got it .Also could you send me the url of the sites where one can learn calculus . 103. Larry Johnson on April 3, 2009 at 1:25 pm said:

AmazingThank you I enjoy this type of material Makes the most complicated, unknown so easy to comprehend and store I have read a lot on higher mathematics but this is a very refreshing approach..so sensible. Your insights are mind boggling Thanks again 104. balakrishnan on April 20, 2009 at 12:40 pm said:

try this book.It has clear explanations of basics idiots guide to calculus. It is available as a torrent download. check this link http://www.mininova.org/tor/2414500

105.

wolfizzi on May 4, 2009 at 12:58 am said:

A little more than thirty years ago I won an award at my high school for being the top math student. A couple of years later, I abandoned the study of mathematics. You see, I could make good grades in my Calc classes, but I had absolutely no idea why I was memorizing how to do it. It was no fun anymore. My 77 year old father has cancer, but he has always been my inspiration in science and math. He is one of the minority scientists who disputes a big bang origin of the universe. (Basically, there is no expansion of the universe, only local contraction as a result of the constant and continual creation of energy, resulting in the gravity phenomenon.) To fully understand what he is trying to tell me, I need to understand calculus. By that, I mean that I dont need to know how to do calculus, I need to see what it is about. I wont have my dad for much longer, so an article like this is invaluable for someone like me. One final comment: There is no science of intelligent design unless its proponents are willing to admit and believe that it might be wrong. 106. Shuhel on May 8, 2009 at 12:16 pm said:

I am here in this blog for about 2 hours, moving post to post. I am just loving it. This is something i was looking for. Respect to Khalid 107. Sumit Rai on June 8, 2009 at 7:52 am said:

Hey its a really cool article. Im currently doing my masters in regenerative medicine but my interest in Nanotechnology leaves me no choice to know this subject of calculus. Could you please let me know how should I go about it in detail and also about articles that are as visually appealing as yours so that i can easily understand rather enjoy the subject. Superb work by you. 108. boss on June 22, 2009 at 4:34 am said:

excellent article. i love it.

109.

Chris on June 27, 2009 at 1:10 am said:

I was googling learning calculus, seeing as how Ive also been quite the frustrated math student. I took BC calc my senior year of high school and absolutely hated the way it was taught. The book used was simply terrible, as other users on amazon would attest to that as well. It skipped out on all the insightful moments leaving that solely to the reader and focused instead on equations and a semiformal approach to proofs. Im starting college this fall and need to seriously brush up on my calculus with the intent of pursuing physics. Your article was quite insightful and what I needed, thank you! 110. Anonymous on July 3, 2009 at 2:10 pm said:

111.

Kalid on July 21, 2009 at 1:23 pm said:

@Shashank: Thanks! Dr. Math has some very good discussions on math that may help. @Larry: Thank you, really glad it was useful! @wolfizzi: Wow, Im happy the article was able to help you in this way. And I agree if a theory cant be refuted, it isnt science. @Shuhel, @Boss: Thanks. @Sumit: I dont have any detailed advice; if you need to learn calculus for a course a professor & book are probably your best bet. Ill have a series of articles which should help provide some intuitive insights about whats being taught. @Chris: Thanks! 112. Mike on July 24, 2009 at 2:24 pm said:

Appreciate your intent Kalid but fail to see what these commenters are rhapsodizing about,youve taken 1600 words to convey a simple geometry lesson,even the crux of it was too lengthy/convoluted,just say to transcribe/reassemble a circle to a right triangle having the same

area,make the radius the base,circumference the height and connect the hypotenuse,and seriously,calculus is needed to show that a disc and a ring are related? Please enlighten me if ive missed the point. 113. Kalid on July 24, 2009 at 4:09 pm said:

@Mike: If you havent been taught calculus in a rote, dull manner, this post may not resonate as much for you. Unfortunately, many calculus introductions jump into definitions and symbol manipulation, without shedding light into the bigger picture of what calculus is for. As a result, students get discouraged, and only see the underlying themes if they happen to stick with the subject to Physics or other applied uses. For the circle/triangle example, its just tangible example of calculus in action. Sure, you can solve it using pure geometry, but calculus gives you a step-by-step method that uses formulas to get to the same result. Finding the surface area of a sphere using geometry alone would be pretty challenging, but calculus makes it simpler. You might have several one-off geometric proofs, each with their own quirks, but calculus can directly show how the various formulas are related and variations of the same theme. I havent seen many calculus introductions discussing this use of calculus, which is one reason I made the intro. 114. AZEEZ on August 5, 2009 at 5:50 am said:

WOW! THIS IS BRILLIANT, I LOVE THIS ARTICLE OF YOURS I MEAN THE EXPRESSIONAS, ILLUSTRATONS AND ALL I CAN SAY IS BRAVO! IVE ALWAYS TRIED TO BUILD-UP MY SELF IN THIS ASPECT BUT WHERE I HAVE PROBLEMS IS THE APPLICATION HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I MEAN, ILL REALLY LOVE TO CONTINUE. PLEASE HOW CAN YOU PROCEED THIS YOUR LECTURE TO ADVANCE THE LEARNING BRAVO!!! again 115. Kalid on August 6, 2009 at 1:03 pm said: .

@Azeez: Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it 116.

x to the nth on August 13, 2009 at 4:12 pm said:

I see your point but when you strip-out the largest circumference youve got 3 points = triangle = the total area that the circle had. If you actually stripped-out a 4-sided segment you would have to incorporate equations involving subtracting the radius of 1 concentric circle from another or something. 117. steven on September 11, 2009 at 1:44 pm said:

I didnt read all the way to the bottom, so sorry if im offering something that has been said. both creationism and evolution receive equal arguments in your article. one would have to be very sensitive and polarized to extract bias from your writing (regarding evolution/creationism). I dont really believe in God, but I dont not believe in God. Maybe I should write god. Idk, i thought i would let you know how I feel about the accusations of subtle religious bias. 118. Kevin on September 18, 2009 at 5:26 pm said:

Im 13, and I think this article was amazing. I read A mathematicians Lament when it was on slashdot a few months ago and until now I think that was the greatest mathematical paper Ive ever read. Ive only found this site a few minutes ago, but the explanations are so clear and elegant. I love the evolution analogy. I think you might be like the second feynman or something. 119. Kalid on September 20, 2009 at 12:20 am said: . Im a huge fan of Feynman, I

@Kevin: Thanks for the kind words! I really like that paper as well

love reading/listening to the way he explains things, hes an inspiration for me. Thanks again for the comment! 120. Ron on October 10, 2009 at 12:56 pm said:

Kalid, youre the teachers teacher. You have very rare gifts. Last but by no means least, Im sure I speak for most people here when I say that you come across more than anything- as a caring friend.

Best wishes from Downunder 121. Kalid on October 10, 2009 at 5:30 pm said:

@Ron: Thank you for the wonderful comment! It really means a lot, my goal is to write things as if I were just having a fun chat about them, just person to person. Im happy that is coming through 122. Wilshire on November 30, 2009 at 12:49 pm said: .

Wow! I must admit that I am very bad at maths. But after coming here and looking the enthusiasm and the way it is shown here I dont think maths is a boring subject at all! Now I need a miracle to pass this year. But Im sure Ill give it my best! Thanks a million yaar! I always knew maths as a boring subject. But not anymore. Again, thanks a lot! 123. Kalid on December 1, 2009 at 1:12 am said: .

@Wilshire: Youre welcome! Really glad youre starting to enjoy math again 124. JaySicks on December 19, 2009 at 1:19 pm said:

Hi Kalid! I was really surprised, how similar your article to my thoughts. Because of education, I always realize the gotcha things years after I learn in school/university. A few weeks ago I was thinking on the relation between a function and its derivative function. And when I realized how they logically relate to each other, how the derivative function describes the original, I had the same dual feeling as you; calculus is beautiful, and it is really sad, that students have to realize it by themselves. Teachers prove things by 2 whiteboard long equations, instead of explaining things from the scratch the path how to find out things for ourselves. It seems teachers want us to learn, not to understand. But I think people forget things fast if they dont understand it (at least I do ).

Im really happy that there are more people out there who see things like this. (I wonder if this way of thinking is somewhat related to the fact that were both interested in programming )

Keep up the good work, and save the world! 125. hitendra on January 18, 2010 at 1:25 am said:

hey kalid, sorry to bother you again. but i have thought of another way of finding area of circle assuming 2*pi*r is the circumference. If we take r to be 100. then we can have hundred circles of radius going from 1 to 100. now if we consider their circumference to be part of area of bigger circle except the last circle of radius r we get following equation 2*pi*1 + 2*pi*2 +.. 2*pi*(r) =2*pi*(1+2+r) =2*pi*r*(r+1)/2 =pi*r2 + pi*r (we can discount pi*r for being circumference of the biggest circle). so we get pi*r2 as area taking it as simplistic deduction. Its just another attempt towards thinking abstract. hope im close. Thanks 126. Seamus on January 19, 2010 at 11:25 am said: and can you tell me how negative numbers cancel each other out?

The slideshow really helped

Because I read your post on imaginary but dont understand how (-3)x(-3)=9 Until someone told me that they cancel each other out, but how? (:-O my aha moments are more like ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh moments) 127. Kalid on January 30, 2010 at 4:20 pm said:

@Seamus: Glad the slideshow helped, I was very happy for the contribution. For negative numbers, I consider -3 to be a shortcut for 3 * -1, which means Take 3, and then flip it". So -3 * -3 means to me 3 * -1 * 3 * -1 which is take 3, flip it, make it 3x larger, flip it again the two flips cancel each other out in that case. I like to visualize numbers like that, but other people may have analogies that help too 128. .

Jasper on February 24, 2010 at 4:03 pm said:

False sense of knowledge here, nice you non-rigorously showed the the area of the circle is r^2 now good luck with the sphere. Doesnt work very easily with geometry, does it? 129. Ketil on February 26, 2010 at 9:55 am said:

Thank you for this and many other great articles. I am currently learning Pre-Engineer Math and Physics in a 5 month course. It is incredibly difficult because I start from scratch. It feels a lot like I am being taught to be a robot feeding numbers into mysterious equations. Your writings really help me see the meaning and beauty behind it all. I like learning but not without understanding. You help me understand Math the same way reading Feynman helps me understand Physics. Thanks! 130. Kalid on February 27, 2010 at 1:11 am said:

@Ketil: Thanks for the note! I completely know what you mean about the robot being fed numbers its just so frustrating not understanding _why_ something is happening. I love Feynmans level of insight, hes one of my explanation heroes that I greatly admire 131. Shankar on February 27, 2010 at 3:59 am said: .

Hi Kalid..beautiful article.. I study in Class 10 and I dont have to learn calculus but I guess the beauty in the name Calculus and my curiosity took me deeper. And u have helped me a lot in understanding it. Your method of deriving the area of a circle from its circumference is cooool. It inspired me to derive the volume of a sphere from its surface area. Doing it the same way as you did, we get a cone whose volume can be found by using the formula : (1/3)*(Base area)*(height).. Hope u continue the good work .!! 132. shory on May 27, 2010 at 12:29 am said:

This article is absolute genius as opposed to the contrived genius that pen math text books. True genius is the ability to explain PhD level stuff to a 10 year old. Contrived genius is the ability of a textbook author to make a PhD candidate feel like a 10 year old.

133.

Kalid on May 31, 2010 at 10:43 pm said:

@Shory: Thanks, glad you liked it! Yes, a huge part of teaching is just trying to explain without getting your ego in the way. Its not about you, its about whether you can develop an idea in someone elses mind. 134. Indrani Sengupta on June 13, 2010 at 1:46 am said:

Amazing explanation. Very lucid . If maths is taught like this then 90% of students who are scared about maths and its formulas will grow aa interest towards it. I wuld like to go through some more articles like this. 135. Chetan Anand on June 26, 2010 at 7:06 am said:

Explicate bellemente!!! Nunc, io non pensa que le mathematica es un subjecto difficile! 136. Jang on July 2, 2010 at 9:16 pm said:

Thank Kalid for absolutely superb posts! Yesterday, I accidentally saw one of your articles and have kept reading your posts. And I feel so lucky to find your site and am excited to teach my son sometime later. Keep your good work up! 137. Kalid on July 2, 2010 at 10:27 pm said: .

@Jang: Awesome, thanks for the encouragement! Glad you were able to browse around 138. Utpal Dasgupta on July 15, 2010 at 3:42 am said:

The calculus the differential & Intregal both are tough, this page does not answer the question how to make the calculus easy for begineer. 139. Meg on July 30, 2010 at 5:16 am said:

I have to take Calculus this fall and I was practically in tears over it until I saw this website! Now I want to go out and buy pipe cleanersand probably some finger paints too 140. Kalid on July 30, 2010 at 8:56 am said:

@Meg: Nice, happy it was able to help! 141. mathews museneni on August 10, 2010 at 4:46 am said:

I have been thinking of doing a course that involves alot of mathe matics of late but i have never been good in it. but now after looking at your definations, i know am going to change my thinking and just go for it. 142. Kalid on August 16, 2010 at 3:48 pm said:

@mathews museneni: Awesome, good luck! 143. Duylam on August 27, 2010 at 7:59 pm said:

can you be my math teacher instead? 144. Kalid on August 28, 2010 at 6:19 pm said: .

@Duylam: Hah, I can try one article at a time 145.

Bron on September 27, 2010 at 3:00 pm said:

Arrg!!! I want to learn calculus, but Im still in eighth grade learning algebra!!!!!!! Grrrrr! 146. Kalid on October 8, 2010 at 10:16 am said: .

@Bron: Dont worry, once you learn algebra, calculus will be there for you 147. Taneja on October 26, 2010 at 8:40 pm said:

God bless you! Or Nature bless you! Or fate bless you! Or whatever.. Thanks!!

148.

Kalid on October 27, 2010 at 3:23 pm said:

@Taneja: Thanks! 149. Wolf on November 2, 2010 at 6:10 pm said:

This article is very helpful, but Im still having a hard time with deciphering intermediate forms. Could you post an article about LHospitals rule? 150. Kalid on November 3, 2010 at 6:28 pm said:

@Wolf: Thanks for the comment thatd be a great topic for an upcoming article. 151. Anonymous on November 30, 2010 at 1:16 pm said:

awesome!!!!!!!!!! 152. JF on December 22, 2010 at 5:20 pm said:

I have a question. In the triangle, I can see why 2*pi*r is the height but can you better explain to me why the base is r? Thanks. 153. Kalid on December 22, 2010 at 5:45 pm said:

@JF: Great question. Theres a visual and algebraic way to look at it, lets look at the visual way first. If you have the triangle (made of some gummy substance) and want to roll it into a circle, how thick should the bottom be? Well, if the very bottom doesnt bend at all, then it should be as thick as the radius. I imagine the straight edge of the triangle, with radius 2*pi*r, being able to bend perfectly into a ring of radius r (after all, a ring of radius r can be unbent into a straight line of height 2*pi*r, right?). So, my visual interpretation is the triangle needs to be large enough to account for the very outside of the circle. Heres a more algebraic way to see it: every point on the circle needs to be covered by a matching point on the triangle (they are the same shape after all, just bent, right?).

Well, every point on the circle can be described using two coordinates: 1) how far from the center are you? and 2) what angle are you? For example, the very edge of the circle on the right side is distance = r (the full distance), angle = 0. The very top of the circle is distance = r (full distance), angle = 90 degrees. The very middle of the circle is distance = 0, angle = 0. If we draw a ring on the circle, we keep a certain distance (like distance = half the radius) and take every angle we can, 0 to 360. This ends up being a straight line on the triangle go out some distance, and draw a line up as far as we can. The length of the line varies, though the further away we get, the more we have to travel to get the full 0 to 360 coverage. But, the key is that we need to go out the full r in order to have lines on the triangle that match up to points on the circle. Phew! Hope this helps. 154. Kalid on December 22, 2010 at 5:49 pm said:

@JF: I forgot that I had color coded the lines. To make it more clear: In the circle, we have the largest ring being dark blue. On the triangle, where should this shop up? Well, the radius of the largest ring is 2 * pi * r, and it is at distance r from the center of the circle. Thus, there needs to be some part of the triangle which as height 2 * pi * r (and there is the blue strip). There arent any more rings after the blue one, so we can stop building the triangle there. A giant caveat is that were ignoring the thickness of the ring a bit like how we ignore the thickness of a line when doing geometry. 155. Tomer on January 13, 2011 at 6:02 am said:

it seems to me that you only got half the area. Shouldnt the base of the triangle be 2r? It looks like you only unrolled half the sphere from the middle up what about the other half?

Where have I got it wrong? Thnx 156. Mike on January 17, 2011 at 9:22 pm said:

Thank you for an excellent article. I just started Calculus I and have been nothing but frustrated by exactly what you describe here. I am very good at problem solving, especially physical, mechanical type problems and for many years made my living as a ships engineer where I did nothing but repair, maintain and implement all sorts of machinery and electro-mechanical systems. I am also good at math but the approach to calculus (that I have experienced so far) is to basically leave out all of the information necessary to solve a problem and to focus on one small step of the process that has been emptied of all of its meaning. The student has no way of knowing if s/he is proceeding in the right direction or even what it is that s/he is trying to figure out. It is maddening!!! I explained this approach to a friend of mine as trying to learn a foreign language, but not being taught the meaning or translation of any of the new, foreign words. The student is expected to simply just memorize the sounds that have been detached from any kind of meaning and become proficient at making those sounds and then after a few years of learning this way the meaning of the words is slowly revealed (if the student has not already forgotten 95% of the meaningless sounds that they learned). Your fingerpainting analogy is even more succinct. It is encouraging to see that I was not mistaken when I perceived Calculus as a simple form of problem solving that has been made extremely difficult (almost unapproachable)by the standard, backwards approach that is presented by most textbooks and professors. Are there any other good sources for learning Calculus from the intuitive point of view that I can reference as I try to make sense of the garbage they are force feeding me in this class? Thanks for your time. 157. Wolfy on January 27, 2011 at 8:14 pm said:

I stumbled upon this in a desperate search to understand what was going on in my Calc I class. Its my dream to become a doctor and the only thing seemingly standing in the way is my longstanding difficulty with higher level math. Yet in 20 minutes with just this page, I not only understood something that looked completely foreign to me, but actually enjoyed it. Whod have thought it? You, and your explanations both completely rock.

158.

Kalid on January 28, 2011 at 10:33 pm said:

@Mike: Wow, thanks for the note! What you say about the process really rings too its so frustrating to go through math as a series of mindless steps without knowing *why* were doing what were doing. I fear that many people dont realize how much more there is, but get discouraged and just go through the rote memorization to get through the class (and never touch the topic again). I havent looked deep enough at other Calculus resources but I like this book: http://www.math.wisc.edu/~keisler/calc.html It teaches calculus using the techniques that its inventors used, not the mathematicians who made it rigorous in the 1800s. 159. Anonymous on February 8, 2011 at 5:35 pm said:

If my AB calculus class was half as good as this, I swear to god Id know calculus in an afternoon. People talk about how oils a limited resource. People talk about how money is a limited resource. Thank you for proving as definitively as ever that the only limited resource is human intelligence, and the creativity to do a little critical thinking and generate something as lucid and sensible as this site. 160. Kalid on February 8, 2011 at 5:57 pm said:

@Tomer: The triangle is only r wide because an individual ring goes all the way around the circle and is counted on both sides. For example, looking at the outermost ring (in blue), you can see that it starts at position r away from the middle but can loop all the way around. Its height is 2*pi*r. I should make a quick video with pipe cleaners to show what I mean @Wolfy: Thanks! Good luck with your class .

. Its funny, I think most mathematical subjects can be

learned in hours or days, not weeks/months, if given the right approach. @Anonymous: Thank you! I deeply believe that its not technology or money which is holding back education its simple, heartfelt explanations and an encouraging attitude which actually help us learn. Appreciate the support! 161. Anonymous on February 25, 2011 at 7:00 am said:

Thanks I leanrnt the basics of Calculas here now. 162. Ken on February 26, 2011 at 4:18 am said:

The only thing that threw me is, how do you know the unrolled rings will create a straight lined hypotenuse rather than some sort of curve? 163. Joe on March 6, 2011 at 7:40 am said:

Ummm, Im in 8th grade (taking 9th grade math) so can someone introduce calculus for my grade level? If not, thats fine. 164. Kalid on March 7, 2011 at 2:22 am said:

@Ken: Great question. Intuitively, I see the rings as being very, very thin lines. Then the question becomes Should the lines get larger at the same rate?. i.e., should there be a smooth, straight line following the tops of the lines making the triangle? Well, the lines come from 2*pi*r that is, the length of each line is the circumference at that radius (for example, if r = 2, the length of the line would be 2 * pi * 2 = 4 * pi). We can see as the radius increases smoothly (2, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3) then the circumference should increase in that same progression (2*pi*2.1, 2*pi*2.2, 2*pi*2.3, and so on). Basically, because the circumference is directly proportional to the radius, as the radius increases in a straight line (from 0 to the full radius), the circumference should increase also. Hope this helps! @Joe: I have another post in the works which takes another approach to introducing calculus. Should be out this week. 165. darien on March 9, 2011 at 11:54 pm said:

this made me make it 1 step closer to being as good as my dad he confuses every one with calculus hes a genius and hes mabye the smartest guy at calculus in the world and im only 10!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 166. James on March 16, 2011 at 5:05 pm said:

Not only does the cutting up the rings stuff work in 2D to find area. But you can extend to 3D to find volume. Only this time its like peeling a layer off an onion and stacking up the peelings. Then to get the volume, find the volume of this stack of peelings using the formula for a pyramid. This means you do 1/3 * r * surfaceArea for the 3d case. Infact as long as you know the radius of the largest sphere you can fit in a shape and the perimiter/surface area of that shape, you can use this method to find the volume or area of pretty much anything. Peace. 167. Ann on March 23, 2011 at 5:39 pm said:

I totally agree with the way math is taught makes students say that math doesnt relate to the real world. Our educational system just focuses on memorization and not real thinking or problem solving, because that is what they test on. As a result we are now proving just how much our students have been taught that they really DONT know how to think for themselves or solve problems. Weve all learned exactly what the system has taught us Just to follow directions and do without thinking. It is all very sad. Your visual explanation of the circle to triangle was beautiful. It was a huge moment of clarity for me. I would love more of this for calculus. I took it and passed many, many years ago and do not remember much. Your article just makes me know I could understand the meaning of what I had memorized long ago and since forgot. If I could read more of this, I know it would give meaning and understanding to all that long lost information. I noticed how long ago this was posted. Do you have any other articles on calculus with other visuals to explain concepts? Ive noted that it was commented that this was actually a visual for integrals. Some have commented that derivatives were simple to understand. Well, for one who still needs more visuals, can you provide either more comments or point me to another article that will help me to see how simple they are too? I need to understand what they really mean. I know it relates to looking at the slope at a given point on the curve. But I feel like I need more substance. How does that help? Or relate? It makes me want to say, so what? What do I do with that now? Can you help? Thank you. 168. Hi! Your site is great! Congratulations! Humberto on April 30, 2011 at 3:01 am said:

Just a small remark: the process of unrolling a ring does not preserve area, that is, the original ring and the final rectangle dont have the same area. This put an extra difficulty in your visual proof. An alternative proof (with no area deformation) is given by Kepler: http://www.matematicasvisuales.com/english/html/history/kepler/keplercircle.html See also (in portuguese): http://www.uff.br/cdme/dsp/dsp-html/dsp-ac-br.html All the best! 169. Anirudh on May 1, 2011 at 10:37 am said:

Absolutely BrilliantAfter a long time I reread this article and its just as its whats needed to be done in any teaching.Your way of explaining is like breathing fresh air. Keep up the good work. Awesome 170. Kalid on May 1, 2011 at 4:51 pm said:

@Humberto: Thanks for the note! Im not clear that the transformation deforms area, but I suppose that makes sense. I do like the alternative proof though! 171. Kalid on May 1, 2011 at 5:03 pm said:

@Anirudh: Thank you! 172. Rupe on May 17, 2011 at 9:08 am said:

Cool article I love the way you explain the relationship between the circle and triangle area ,wish more books would start off like that . After twenty years i still groan at doing calculus for a new course and I am doing one now with a lot of vector based calculus for Electromagnetism ,surfaces Gausses Theorem, Gaussian surfaces ,your explanation of divergence clicked right away. may I recommend a book to your readers which although old is freely available and makes calculus

simple for simple minded folk like me . The title is Project Gutenbergs Calculus Made Easy, by Silvanus Phillips Thompson Details: Title: Calculus Made Easy Being a very-simplest introduction to those beautiful methods which are generally called by the terrifying names of the Differential Calculus and the Integral Calculus Author: Silvanus Phillips Thompson Release Date: July 28, 2010 [EBook #33283] Language: English Here is a quote from the prologue: Considering how many fools can calculate, it is surprising that it should be thought either a dicult or a tedious task for any other fool to learn how to master the same tricks. Some calculus-tricks are quite easy. Some are enormously dicult. The fools who write the textbooks of advanced mathematicsand they are mostly clever foolsseldom take the trouble to show you how easy the easy calculations are. On the contrary, they seem to desire to impress you with their tremendous cleverness by going about it in the most dicult way. Being myself a remarkably stupid fellow, I have had to unteach myself the diculties, and now beg to present to my fellow fools the parts that are not hard. Master these thoroughly, and the rest will follow. What one fool can do, another can. Powerful stuff . I am reading your articles with great interest , thanks for sharing. 173. Kalid on May 19, 2011 at 11:22 pm said:

@Rupe: Thanks for the wonderful comment! Thats a great quote, sometimes math is made more complex than it needs to be. That book is been on my list .

174.

Chase on June 3, 2011 at 12:52 pm said:

Nice Bruce Lea quotation!! 175. Tom on June 22, 2011 at 4:33 pm said:

Re: your nested rings exercise proving area of circle formula either I dont get it or it is truly illogical. The concentric rings in your example have a conveniet thickness. Instead, let those thickness be close to zero. Or a mile thick and in both cases the answers pertaIn not at all. What am i missing here please? 176. Kalid on June 22, 2011 at 4:55 pm said:

@Tom: Great question! The key idea is that instead of measuring a wiggling shape directly, we break it into easy-to-measure pieces and measure those. Check out the diagram on this page for an example: http://betterexplained.com/articles/why-do-we-need-limits-and-infinitesimals/ We can model a shifting wave with a bunch of smaller rectangles. The key is the finer-grained our measurements (mini-shapes), the closer we match the real shape. So, taking measurements a mile-wide would give a pretty poor approximation .

Youve hit the heart of calculus with close to zero though. The idea is to make measurements so fine, so close to zero, that we cant tell it apart from the original. (This happens all the time, by the way we watch movies and think were seeing fluid motion, but its 24 frames per second. We dont need perfectly fluid motion, we just need something good enough that we cant tell the difference). Calculus is about finding that threshold for good enough where theres no detectable mathematical difference from the real thing. In this case, Calculus tells us theres no detectable difference between the unrolled circle and the triangle. (There are much more formal ways to state this, but its how I think about it). 177. mitrajyoti on July 17, 2011 at 9:09 pm said:

Thanks Kalid, reading your blog is much like a dream come true for me like most of the others. Today I am going to Start teaching Calculas to my my first student. He is just 2 yeas younger than me and I am thinking how to show him that differentiation is just the opposite of integration. But how to show that slope calculation is the opposite of calculating the area under the same curve? I will post as soon as I find some analogy. By then,Everyones view is welcome for me. 178. Kalid on July 18, 2011 at 9:02 am said:

@mitrajyoti: Thanks for the kind words! Im working on an analogy for differentiation too I think Id like to avoid explicit mention of slope (at first) just because its another concept to learn. I dont think people are super-comfortable (intuitively) with graphs, so using this as a building block might be tricky. But you never know, if you find an analogy that works, use it! (and share!) 179. Peter Farrell on August 18, 2011 at 9:11 am said:

Kalid, your approach is refreshing and enlightening! The way Calculus is taught is wrong, wrong, wrong. My lawyer says I need your permission before tattooing the entire A Note on Rigor paragraph on my back. 180. Kalid on August 18, 2011 at 11:19 am said:

@Peter: Thanks for the note! Hah, I dont have any tattoos but a tirade in favor of intuitive math education is definitely a contender 181. .

CD on August 19, 2011 at 9:36 pm said:

This all seems so easy, over night i decided to brush up on algebra and it took less then an hour to remember everything, afterwards i decided hell i will take a crack at calculus, after reviewing only 3 pages and about 2 hours of writing things down i find myself stuck what else is there, i get the concept of familiarity to algebra and using the concept to solve equations from calculus, but what i dont get is what now i feel i must be missing something so i am now looking at physics which seems to be using calculus to make up things about physical aspects. if any ones has any advise where i can look further about calculus and math in general to further expand my curiosity please let me know. one thought i wanted to work on is my idea for the ever expanding universe, but not in an explosion but in multiple explosions that further expand the universe more and more, and pushing the universe

further and further and all of its matter threw a very delicate process of gravity+force best way to describe would be taking a pebble and dropping it in a pond and watching it ripple. again just doing this all for fun but would love to try and test this theory with math 182. CD on August 19, 2011 at 9:43 pm said:

i guess what i am trying to say with this is that force; eg. explosions have gravity and explosions would also die out over time, so depending on how much force is in the explosion there could very well be gravity or some other force constructed by this explosion, thus would be causing the universe to act like a ripple and would send galaxys and other things in space in an up and down motion while expanding again this is just a thought i had and would like to work on it 183. CD on August 23, 2011 at 6:10 am said:

so no advise on any other learning points? 184. CD on August 23, 2011 at 6:12 am said:

well if anyone can give me any tips on how to move forward my email is ranmalrac@yahoo 185. Michelle on August 30, 2011 at 12:00 pm said:

Thanks for a wonderful and well-written article! As both a college student and a math tutor, I have found many of your posts helpful. I dont normally read the comments, but this time I was curious to see what others thought of the evolution-calculus parallel. And after reading the comments, I could not resist putting in my own two cents. 1) The end result of evolution is to render God superfluous. Religion is defined (according to the Oxford dictionary) as the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. Evolutionists maintain that their conclusions are purely scientific, but their conclusions are premised on the belief that God does not exist, or at the very least, was not vital to the creation of the universe. However, I do not have a problem with mixing science and religion. To my mind they are inseparable, for religion is the lens through which we interpret the world.

2) I find it very interesting that the fathers of calculus (Newton and Leibniz) both believed God had major role in the creation of the universe. In whatever manner God created the world, it would always have been regular and in a certain general order. Leibniz Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done. Newton How peculiar that two men who were so wrong about a subject as crucial as the origin of the universe would be able to formulate a subject as intricate as calculus. And, just for the record, here is a quote from Einstein: In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views. 186. Erica on September 10, 2011 at 5:44 am said:

you have no idea the aha moment I had just reading this 1 article. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. T 187. Kalid on September 11, 2011 at 11:59 pm said:

@Erica: Yay! Happy it worked 188. Scott on September 20, 2011 at 3:35 pm said:

Great article! I struggled with calculus until a class in Statistics, all of a sudden the area under the curve made sense. Learning computer programming simplifies this entirely. Take a for-loop, all this is is integration from one value to another. Calculating the area under the curve is exceedingly easy when plugging the iterator value into the function.

189.

Kalid on September 20, 2011 at 3:39 pm said:

@Scott: Thanks! I hadnt thought of the programming for loop, but thats a great analogy! 190. Don Nyberg on October 17, 2011 at 2:07 pm said:

WOW! er a-ha never took trig or calculus in high school because the theoms and postulates (spelling?) really turned me off. I loved and still do love physics, but was so discouraged by memorization of formulas without any practical examples, that i could not continue. that was 30 years ago, and i can honestly say that if I had had an instructor/professor that explained it like you did my life would be completely different. the first time i was ever told what pi is, and how it was/is derived makes it so easy. Thank you 191. Kalid on October 17, 2011 at 2:47 pm said:

@Don: Thanks for the note, Im really happy it helped! One of my biggest insights was that once you get over the frustration, learning can become truly, genuinely enjoyable. So much education is focused on memorization because thats the easiest thing to measure (and usually the first thing we forget!). Thanks again for the comment. 192. Aj meunier on October 29, 2011 at 9:20 am said:

So im only in grade 8 but i really wanna know calculus because i hate when people know it and it makes me feel dumb. This page has sorta helped me understand it but i still want to know how to do an equation that someone gives me. My math teacher teaches all levels of math from 10-2 to calculus and he teaches me 10-2 now so im ready because i asked him for help but its still hard to understand calculus and what the equation equals to. 193. Gordon Knight on November 14, 2011 at 5:55 pm said:

By Page 2 I was laughing my head off, then crying with joy. I have begun the understanding of calculus. God knows how long it will take me to get through the rest of the pages but I am expecting the finest of steak dinners. Thank you for being. 194. kalid on November 14, 2011 at 7:45 pm said:

@Gordon: Wow, thank you for the heartfelt comment, it made my day

. Ive realized theres no

race in math, we learn what we can as we can (just like theres no race to read every book). Really glad it clicked for you. 195. rash on November 30, 2011 at 3:36 pm said:

THANK YOU! ive always been a bit disappointed that maths (at pre-uni and uni level) never seems to be intuitive to me the way it was when i was a kid. i still occasionally get an aha! moment, and its the greatest feeling when i do, but its often after months (or years) of using them to calculate things without really understanding. (the point in implicit differentiation when you could separate dx and dy was a complete shock to me, i thought it was like splitting sin into si * n or something). I had my aha! moment for what dy/dx really means probably over a year after i started using it, when i noticed the slope of a straight line was just the differential which was just difference in y/ difference in x and the one for integration was only a couple of months ago (over two years since i learnt it). BOOKMARKED, looking forward to more aha! moments from this site 196. kalid on November 30, 2011 at 6:51 pm said: . I totally know what you mean, I love the excitement of

@rash: Awesome! Glad it was helpful

having a tough idea finally click. Thats a good point about separating dy/dx into dy and dx in physics you are allowed to, but in rigorous math you arent (as you say, itd be like separating sin into s*in)! But the intuition comes when you can separate the ideas and play with them a bit. Id like to write more about this topic. Thanks for the comment. 197. Marvin K. Mooney on December 4, 2011 at 6:24 pm said:

WoW! This is an exceptionally cool way of looking at this subject that is typically considered lackluster and dry. If more kids could be exposed to this article alone Im sure they would be given hope in terms of their interest in Math. I know I was!! Thanks dude. 198. kalid on December 4, 2011 at 6:30 pm said:

@Marvin: Thanks (and please dont go home). I find anything can be fascinating if presented properly!

199.

Bill on December 21, 2011 at 9:10 am said:

Hi, I like the idea. I dont know if you are familiar with tau (tauday.com) but it is a good way to introduce new people to the concepts being discussed without an errant factor of 2 in there (or a 1/2 missing). Let tau=2pi. 200. kalid on December 22, 2011 at 10:45 am said:

@Bill: Thanks, I like tau as well. It helps people break away from a memorized formula and think about what the concept of pi really is. 201. Husam on January 10, 2012 at 12:46 am said:

good work, i was thinking about calculus, it is very interesting subject to learn, but my book defines calculus concepts so confusingly e.g. here is definition of continuity as per my book, A f(x) is said to be continuous at a point x=c in its domain if for a given > 0, there exists > 0, such that |f(x)-f(c)|< for all |x-c|< " that i was totally confused, although i understood the concept of continuity from its graph but just cant understand this definition. they fill so many bloody greek symbols in them that it becomes so complicated. 202. kalid on January 10, 2012 at 1:41 pm said:

@Husam: Yes, unfortunately the definitions we see in math books are ones that have been refined over thousands of years to the most precise possible. Its like describing a cat using its DNA sequence instead of saying its a 4-legged animal with whiskers and a tail. The DNA sequence is more precise but not helpful for a beginner. 203. octave communication on January 11, 2012 at 10:01 am said:

Valuable info. Lucky me I discovered your web site unintentionally, and I am stunned why this accident did not took place earlier! I bookmarked it. 204. ankastre on January 18, 2012 at 11:39 am said:

great post, thank again plase 205. Jim on January 24, 2012 at 9:30 am said:

Mr. Azad, Do you plan to teach, or are you teaching now, a complete course on Calculus that follows the illustrative method you use above? If so, please let me know as I would very much like to take such a course. Also, let me know what the cost would be for such a course. I am anxious to start. Please advise. Thanks and Regards, Jim 206. kalid on January 24, 2012 at 4:04 pm said:

@Jim: Thank you for the comment! Id love to make a calculus course once I have enough material available this year Im planning on cranking up the calculus content so hopefully it will be available sometime in the near future. Most likely, it will focus on developing intuition and using other online courseware (Khan Academy, MIT Open courseware, etc.) for practice problems, etc. Thank you for the encouragement though, Ill be putting together a mailing list for these future projects. 207. eaca on January 30, 2012 at 6:16 am said:

Hi, excellent article as always, many thanks. I think youll very much enjoy this musing on infinitesimals v limits: http://www.friesian.com/calculus.htm Thanks again for another gem of an introduction. 208. kalid on January 30, 2012 at 11:39 am said: .

@eaca: Glad you liked it, and thanks for the link checking it out now 209. Andrei on February 28, 2012 at 12:24 pm said:

When you unrolled the circles, I was like ARRGHHHHH!!!!. Thank you! 210. Sudharshan Gomadam on March 5, 2012 at 10:33 am said:

Kalid great site and great service to mankind ! on the same subject,taking the example of area of circle. the rate of change area would be differentiation of PI*r^2 which is equal to 2PI*r. This intuitively seems to make sense as every small change in radius will lead to increase in area by the circumference we know that differentiation of x^2 is 2x ( I know the derivation using limits X+h etc). However, if we take real numbers say x=(2,3,4,5), x^2=(4,9,16,25). the change is 5(9-4 etc), 7,9,11). This is equal to 2x+1 and not 2x. What am i missing here? 211. kalid on March 5, 2012 at 10:48 am said: .

@Andrei: Haha, awesome glad it clicked

@Sudharshan: Great question. Youll notice that the change between x and x^2 (2x + 1) is actually dependent on the size of the change you are measuring. If you are jumping from 2^2 to 3^2, you take a step of 1.0 and a change of 9 4 = 5 = 2x + 1. What about taking a smaller step, such as 2^2 to 2.1^2? Were only jumping to the number .1 in front of us. In this case, the difference is 4.41 4 = .40 + .01 = 2*x*(.1) + (.1)^2 Youll see that the error term is based on how far you step! In Calculus, we take tiny, microscopic steps which means the error term is some microscopic amount squared (micro-microscopic). For small steps, our error rate is shrinking faster than our step rate, and eventually becomes negligible. The trick: to measure the difference from 2^2 to 3^2, dont jump all at once. Find the difference from 2^2 to 2.1^2, and 2.1^2 to 2.2^2, and so on the error at each stage is (.1)^2 = .01, so after 10 jumps the total error is only .1. So, jumping from 2 to 3 in steps of .1 gives a total error of .1. If we jumped in steps of .000001, wed have a total error of .000001. At some point, we can make the steps small enough to be accurate enough for our needs (theres always some error threshold we can work within).

I plan on writing more about this! 212. Forseon on April 5, 2012 at 10:52 am said:

Hey I have a question. Is it possible to integrate the volume of the sphere using the same method only with a pyramid? I tried using r*2pir as the base of the the pyramid and pir^2 as the height, but after applying the formula it doesnt seem to be working. Wikipedia went about deriving the volume of a sphere on a completely different manner and when I differentiate the formula for the volume I get the formula for the surface area of a sphere. What is the relation between these results? Is there a way to continuously integrate the equations in order to make dimensional leaps or better yet, to express this in a geometrial manner? Because that would make calculating shapes above the third dimension very easy. 213. Anonymous on May 30, 2012 at 6:12 pm said:

i love calculus:) 214. kalid on June 12, 2012 at 6:30 pm said:

@Forseon: Great questions! 1) Differentiating the volume formula and getting the surface area formula is a way of peeling there sphere layer-by-layer (similar to making a disc out of a bunch of rings, you can make a sphere out of a bunch of peels layered on top of each other). 2) Getting the volume for the sphere by building it up is tricky. If you assume a flat line curve for the discs, you are actually building a cone [you might have come up with this formula]. In order to properly measure the discs, we use the pythagorean theorem to see h = sqrt(r^2 w^2) [where w is the width of the current disc and h is the height]. I need to do a follow-up, but you end up seeing the top half of the sphere is 2/3 pi * r^3, the bottom half is the same, for a total of 4/3 pi * r^3. 215. Braxton on June 15, 2012 at 10:54 pm said:

I have never really bothered to read anything into calculus. It always seemed like it would be extremely difficult to even grasp what it was. After reading this, I actually feel that I would actually like to learn a lot more into this as this gave me a really good view of what Calculus is. Algebra & calculus are a problem-solving duo: calculus finds new equations, and algebra solves them. well said! 216. Charles on June 19, 2012 at 5:56 am said:

The reason i luv calculus is datit reveals us 2 mechanical engneering,in Thermodynamic courre. 217. Margaret on June 19, 2012 at 7:18 pm said:

I like what you said. Im a liberal arts person but has always found math fascinating. Two Weeks ago I read an article on quantum entanglment and since then have been trying to figure out how to learn more. In doing so I am now trying to re learn algebra, which I havent really done for over 20 years. This is exciting yet daunting especially since I am doing this on my own and not in a class. I do this so that I can really understand what people are saying about entanglement, and well learning is always a good thing. Thank you for describing it in a manner my liberal arts mind not only understood but enjoyed.I look forward to my journey in the math world. 218. Anonymous on July 18, 2012 at 1:38 pm said:

I love you and want your babies. Ive ALWAYS struggled with calculus (math in general). This single article has taught me more (in terms of real understanding) than my last 24 years of schooling. 219. Richard on July 18, 2012 at 5:20 pm said:

This helped a lot, thanks! 220. Al on July 21, 2012 at 1:35 pm said:

These are some wise words. The education system does try and crush my love for maths but this has assisted to allow me to look past that and focus on the beauty of the subject. Thank you 221. kalid on July 24, 2012 at 4:50 pm said:

@Anonymous: Really glad you liked it! @Richard: Youre welcome! 222. kalid on July 24, 2012 at 4:50 pm said:

@Al: Thanks, really glad it clicked with you! 223. Vinay on September 24, 2012 at 11:15 pm said:

Calculus is a very lovely subject.it is hazy in the beginning, but be patient.You will see how rigid and awesome it is later.everything is so beautifully connected. TIP: Ask questions and show curiosity till you understand everything 224. JOHN on October 11, 2012 at 5:20 am said:

If nature is programmed, how does your statement [Like evolution, calculus expands your understanding of how Nature works.] Evolution doesnt explain how nature is programmed? Yes, NATURE IS PROGRAMMED! And, Who is th programmer? Who wrote or created the CODE? 225. JOHN on October 11, 2012 at 5:35 am said:

. . . the anatomy of the eye is a program found in a gene called The Master Eye Gene found by Dr. Walter Gehring. 226. Pete Schoeninger on October 21, 2012 at 7:48 pm said:

I had a terrible time with calculus at Parks College of St Louis University in early 1970s. Had to take Calc 1 three times to pass, three times to pass Calc 2, never used any of it in the next 40 years. But I feel to this day presentations were awful, full of theorems, not a bit of common sense real world problems solved or real world applications shown. Probably half the students flunked out of Parks College because of Calc. Reading your stuff tonight was a great refresher, and you have an excellent knack of simple explanation. Thank you. I wish I had you as an instructor 40 years ago! 227. kalid on October 26, 2012 at 10:29 pm said:

Hi Pete, thanks for the note. Its really sad, we learn things that are never internalized and were stuck in the same spot after the class, no intuition for the subject. Really happy things resonated with you 228. . Yashvardhan Tomar on October 28, 2012 at 8:45 pm said:

Good work Kalid!! I was already 200% into mathematics and now my interest grew 400% after reading the article! You got a lot of lot of experience- thats for sure! Congratulations and keep up the good work! btware all the articles written by you? If yes, you are SUPERAWESOME and very very brainy! Thanks

http://betterexplained.com/articles/prehistoric-calculus-discovering-pi/

Prehistoric Calculus: Discovering Pi

Pi is mysterious. Sure, you know its about 3.14159 because you read it in some book. But what if you had no textbooks, no computers, and no calculus (egads!) just your brain and a piece of paper. Could you find pi? Archimedes found pi to 99.9% accuracy 2000 years ago without decimal points or even the number zero! Even better, he devised techniques that became the foundations of calculus. I wish I learned his discovery of pi in school it helps us understand what makes calculus tick.

How do we find pi?

Pi is the circumference of a circle with diameter 1. How do we get that number?

Say pi = 3 and call it a day. Draw a circle with a steady hand, wrap it with string, and measure with your finest ruler. Use door #3

Whats behind door #3? Math!

How did Archimedes do it?

Archimedes didnt know the circumference of a circle. But he didnt fret, and started with what he did know: the perimeter of a square. (He actually used hexagons, but squares are easier to work with and draw, so lets go with that, ok?). We dont know a circles circumference, but for kicks lets draw it between two squares:

Neat its like a racetrack with inner and outer edges. Whatever the circumference is, its somewhere between the perimeters of the squares: more than the inside, less than the outside. And since squares are, well, square, we find their perimeters easily:

Outside square: side = 1, perimeter = 4 Inside square: side = sqrt(.52 + .52) = .7 [Thanks, Pythagoras], perimeter = 4 * .7 = 2.8

We may not know where pi is, but that critter is scurrying between 2.8 and 4. Lets say its halfway between, or pi = 3.4.

Squares drool, octagons rule

We estimated pi = 3.4, but honestly wed be better off with the ruler and string. What makes our guess so bad? Squares are clunky. They dont match the circle well, and the gaps make for a loose, error-filled calculation. But, increasing the sides (using the mythical octagon, perhaps) might give us a tighter fit and a better guess (image credit):

Cool! As we yank up the sides, we get closer to the shape of a circle. So, whats the perimeter of an octagon? Im not sure if I learned that formula. While were at it, we could use a 16-side-a-gon and a 32-do-decker for better guesses. What are their perimeters again? Crickey, those are tough questions. Luckily, Archimedes used creative trigonometry to devise formulas for the perimeter of shape when you double the number of sides: Inside perimeter: One segment of the inside (such as the side of a square) is sin(x/2), where x is the angle spanning a side. For example, one side of the inside square is sin(90/2) = sin(45) ~ .7. The full perimeter is then 4 * .7 = 2.8, as we had before. Outside perimeter: One segment of the outside is tan(x/2), where x is the angle spanning one side. So, one segment of the outside perimeter is tan(45) = 1, for a total perimeter of 4. Neat we have a simple formula! Adding more sides makes the angle smaller:

Squares have an inside perimeter of 4 * sin(90/2). Octogons have eight 45-degree angles, for an inside perimeter of 8 * sin(45/2).

Try it out a square (sides=4) has 91% accuracy, and with an octagon (sides=8) we jump to 98%! But theres a problem: Archimedes didnt have a calculator with a sin button! Instead, he used trig identities to rewrite sin and tan in terms of their previous values:

New outside perimeter New inside perimeter =

[harmonic mean] [geometric mean]

These formulas just use arithmetic no trig required. Since we started with known numbers like sqrt(2) and 1, we can repeatedly apply this formula to increase the number of sides and get a better guess for pi. By the way, those special means show up in strange places, dont they? I dont have a nice intuitive grasp of the trig identities involved, so well save that battle for another day.

Cranking the formula

Starting with 4 sides (a square), we make our way to a better pi (download the spreadsheet):

Every round, we double the sides (4, 8, 16, 32, 64) and shrink the range where pi could be hiding. Lets assume pi is halfway between the inside and outside boundaries. After 3 steps (32 sides) we already have 99.9% accuracy. After 7 steps (512 sides) we have the lauded five nines. And after 17 steps, or half a million sides, our guess for pi is as accurate as Excel. Not a bad technique, Archimedes! Unfortunately, decimals hadnt been invented in 250 BC, let alone spreadsheets. So Archimedes had to slave away with these formulas using fractions. He began with hexagons (6 sides) and continued 12, 24, 48, 96 until hed had enough (ever try to take a square root using fractions alone?). His final estimate for pi, using a shape with 96 sides, was:

The midpoint puts pi at 3.14185, which is over 99.9% accurate. Not too shabby! If you enjoy fractions, the mysteriously symmetrical 355/113 is an extremely accurate (99.99999%) estimate of pi and was the best humanity had for nearly a millennium. Some people use 22/7 for pi, but now you can chuckle Good grief, 22/7 is merely the upper bound found by Archimedes 2000 years ago! while adjusting your monocle. Theres even better formulas out there too.

Wheres the Calculus?

Archimedes wasnt doing calculus but he laid the groundwork for its development: start with a crude model (square mimicking a circle) and refine it. Calculus revolves around these themes:

We dont know the answer, but weve got a guess. We had a guess for pi: somewhere between 2.8 and 4. Calculus has many concepts such as Taylor Series to build a guess with varying degrees of accuracy.

Lets make our guess better. Archimedes discovered that adding sides made a better estimate. There are numerical methods to refine a formula again and again. For example,

computers can start with a rough guess for the square root and make it better (faster than finding the closest answer from the outset).

You can run but not hide. We didnt know exactly where pi was, but trapped it between two boundaries. As we tightened up the outside limits (pun intended), we knew pi was hiding somewhere inside. This is formally known as the Squeeze Theorem.

Pi is an unreachable ideal. Finding pi is a process that never ends. When we see

it really

means You want perfection? Thats nice everyone wants something. Just start cranking away and stop when pi is good enough.. Ill say it again: Good enough is good enough. A shape with 96 sides was accurate enough for anything Archimedes needed to build. The idea that close counts is weird shouldnt math be precise? Math is a model to describe the world. Our equations dont need to be razor-sharp if the universe and our instruments are fuzzy.

Life Lessons
Even math can have life lessons hidden inside. Sometimes the best is the enemy of the good. Perfectionism (I need the exact value of pi!) can impede finding good, usable results. Whether making estimates or writing software, perhaps you can start with a rough version and improve it over time, without fretting about the perfect model (it worked for Archimedes!). Most of the accuracy may come from the initial stages, and future refinements may be a lot of work for little gain (the Pareto Principle in action). Ironically, the crude techniques seen here led to calculus, which in turn led to better formulas for pi.

Math Lessons
Calculus often lacks an intuitive grounding we can count apples to test arithmetic, but its hard to think about abstract equations that are repeatedly refined. Archimedes discovery of pi is a vivid, concrete example for our toolbox. Just like geometry refines our intuition about lines and angles, calculus defines the rules about equations that get better over time. Examples like this help use intuition as a starting point, instead of learning new ideas in a vacuum.

Later, well discuss what it means for numbers to be close enough. Just remember that 96 sides was good enough for Archimedes, and half a million sides is good enough for Excel. Weve all got our limits.

Other Posts In This Series

1. A Gentle Introduction To Learning Calculus 2. Prehistoric Calculus: Discovering Pi (This post) 3. Learning Calculus: Overcoming Our Artificial Need for Precision 4. Why Do We Need Limits and Infinitesimals? 5. A Friendly Chat About Whether 0.999... = 1 6. A Calculus Analogy: Integrals as Multiplication 7. Calculus: Building Intuition for the Derivative 8. Understanding Calculus With A Bank Account Metaphor 9. How To Understand Derivatives: The Product, Power & Chain Rules 10. How To Understand Derivatives: The Quotient Rule, Exponents, and Logarithms

1 Category: Calculus, Math

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Q: How exactly can the circumference of a circle be an irrational number? (More...)

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by Josie full discussion page I haven't completed Algebra 2 yet, so I'm probably missing something, but the measurement of the circumference of a circle is a finite quantity, isn't it? How can it be irrational? Kalid Great question. Intuitively, I don't have a great answer. Here's where my head is at:

A circle is a shape with infinite sides -- so we've never created a perfect one (even a drawn circle is a bunch of ink atoms, linked together in a giant polygon). I looked on Wikipedia and there are some proofs that pi is irrational... and they didn't come till the 18th century! So it took a long, long time to figure out that pi wasn't rational. In my head, pi (and e) are the result of continually changing processes, which help me understand why they could be irrational (we can't assign a set number of sides to a circle, or a set number of steps to e). But still hard to think about! (If it helps, the square root of 2 is irrational, and it's just the diagonal of a 1x1 square. It caused a lot of trouble when it was discovered too). Joe Also, irrational numbers still count as 'finite.' They have an infinite number of decimal places, yes, but are still perfectly normal numbers...we just can't write them 'exactly' in decimal form. The Pythagoreans, who took their math seriously in a religious manner, didn't believe in irrational numbers, and legend has it they excommunicated/drowned a student who proved the irrationality of the square root of 2. Probably not true, but a little bit of colorful history never hurts.
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God is one (More...)

by Soulreader full discussion page I appologize at start if my english is not perfect - it is not my native language, so I express myself on english not as I want, but as I can. I will try to express my opinion on the best possible way. It is a true that our science becomes materialistic and I studied electrical engineering on that way, never thinking about spiritual way of what I learned untill one day,

when I figured out something about the numbers and I find the open book in front of myself that never ends. Squering the circle means to know how to generate number pi, how to generate its next digit, and not only that. Squering the circle means also to be able to measure how long some curve line is. To measure curve line - it means you have to compare it with some streight line, but it is hard to fit them, isn't it? So, squering the circle is the same as comparing curve line and streight line and finding their corelation... as comparing soul and body and find the corelation... as comparing man and woman and find the corelation...as comparering good and evel and find the corelation. Please watch the numbers - 012345678910 - but only as a forms.curve- 0, streight line - 1, combination - 2, only curves - 3, only streight lines - 4, combination - 5, combination - 6, streight lines - 7, curves - 8, combination - 9, streight line -1, curve - 0.Some of them are extremes (only curve or only streight lines) some of them are balance (combination). Each number has its own pair 01, 25, 34, 69, 78, 10 complicated as much as it is, but on some way opposite. Now place them in the number pi...as you go more and more discovering number pi as a multiform you actualy know more about each its digit, about extremes and about balance. As long you go from digit to digit of the number pi you will find out - at start was circle, at the end is circle - conection between these two is long, narrow and unsecure path very few people are following on the right way these days, holding faith in their souls as a small light of the candel.
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Good Enough is Good Enough (More...)

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by Kim full discussion page You ought to publish your work here. I was scouring for Calculus books that took a more intuitive approach to the subject and found nothing. This is the closest that I could find. Calculus really makes a great deal of sense and I don't understand why the classroom makes it so excruciatingly bland. Thanks!!!

kalid Wow, thanks Kim! I'd like to make a calculus book, appreciate the encouragement :).
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Very good. Your philosophy is sound and concern for the beauty of the calculus inspiring. 1

by Anonymous full discussion page kalid Thank you!

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Aha! The insight that helped w as:

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78 thoughts on Prehistoric Calculus: Discovering Pi

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1. Matthew Bardoe on May 29, 2008 at 10:19 am said: Great post. I really liked the formatting too, and the calculator at the end. Worthwhile talk about how you might estimate pi in other ways, such as estimating the number co-prime numbers, or the Buffon Needle problem. Just some ideas. Again, great post. Matt 2. Chad Groft on May 29, 2008 at 11:39 am said: I like the article, and will definitely use the ideas in my classes, but first there is a minor problem to solve. You have the inside perimeter as the geometric mean of the previous estimates, and the outside perimeter as the harmonic mean. The problem is, the harmonic mean is always /smaller/ than the geometric mean. Maybe they just switch, but I dont see how yet. The page to which you link contains the same mistake. I have no idea where that guy got the trig identities he cites, but Ill keep working on it. 3. Chad Groft on May 29, 2008 at 12:03 pm said: Update: Okay, I now see I was reading the formulae incorrectly (one refers to newIn rather than Inside), but the formulae themselves are wrong as well (on your page; the page you link to gets them right). They should be

newOut = harmonicMean(Inside, Outside) and newIn = geometric(Inside, newOut) which is what you use in the spreadsheet. 4. Zac on May 29, 2008 at 2:23 pm said: In my email to you about writing a guest article, I had one that this article just destroys. I talked (a lot) about Archimedes discovery that 223/71 5. Zac on May 29, 2008 at 2:26 pm said: The comment form just ate my last comment; I have no idea why that is. I continued on from there: 223/71 6. Zac on May 29, 2008 at 2:27 pm said: Okay, I figured it out. It misinterpreted what I typed as html. In my email to you about writing a guest article, I had one that this article just destroys. I talked (a lot) about Archimedes discovery that 223/71 is less than pi which is less than 22/7, though I focused more on the concept than the mathematics behind it. Although, your square root comment made me think: I have a better explanation for Newtons method than you had in the Quake Square Root article, so maybe I should write about that 7. Kalid on May 29, 2008 at 5:23 pm said: @Matt: Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! Those are great suggestions, I think itd be great for a follow-up. I didnt want to distract from the calculus roots too much in this post, but the needle approach is a fun way to look at probability.

@Chad: Sorry about the confusion there! Yes, I made a major flub and miswrote the equations (just corrected it), the spreadsheet should have the correct ones. @Zac: No worries I should probably install a live preview plugin so people will know when their comment is getting eaten / mistaken for HTML. Sure, if you have ideas for the square root method feel free to write them down once the contribution wiki is up Im sure itll be a nice addition 8. Brijesh Tripathi on May 29, 2008 at 10:22 pm said: hey nice one there for a quick look , although we know the value of pi after all those yrs of forced insertion of the value into our heads, but this gives a better insight to the derivation in a way, appreciate the effort! 9. Kalid on May 30, 2008 at 12:57 am said: Thanks Brijesh! Yep, we know pi because weve seen it before, but its nice to see how we came to that result. 10. tekumse on May 30, 2008 at 7:36 am said: Please explain this: >Whatever the circumference is, its somewhere between the perimeters of the squares: more than the inside, less than the outside. Why is it obvious that the outside square and futhermore 512-sided-thingy has bigger perimeter? 11. Zac on May 30, 2008 at 8:46 pm said: Reading a little more into pi and the ways of calculuating it seem to always lead me to Taylor Series. It would be nice to really understand whats going on there. Pi is a fun number. For some reason, I decided to memorize it to 50 decimal places. The fact that its impossible to calculate exactly just makes it even more fun to try and find more. 12. Miguel Martinez on May 30, 2008 at 11:13 pm said: .

Well,Im from Lima,Per.And I never going to understand the way americans do math.For us PIis=3.1416.And if Im not wrong 22/7 is not a correct anwser.not even that 223/71.Also I found and america you guys solve math problems outside down.My favorite subject is MATH,and II want tobe a math teacher. I wish I dont make mad noone with my comments. 13. Anonymous on May 31, 2008 at 2:56 pm said: this guy says pi is 3.154700 http://www.dinbali.com 14. cheeese burger on June 1, 2008 at 8:52 am said: Dude the chinese made a much better version than Archimedes sooner. They made ones with roughly 30-100 sides according to my research. 15. Kalid on June 1, 2008 at 12:39 pm said: @tekumse: Thats an interesting question, sometimes its good to break down these assumptions. The formal name for the inside shape is inscribed and the formal name for the outside shape is circumscribed. The area of the inscribed shape is less than or equal to the area of the circle, since all points are inside the boundary. The area of the circumscribed shape is greater than or equal to the area of the circle, since all points are outside the boundary. Therefore, the area of the inscribed polygon is less than or equal to the area of the circumscribed shape. For similar shapes, the greater area corresponds to a greater side length (see the Pythagorean theorem for more details). Since we are using similar shapes (squares, octagons, 16-gons, etc.) the circumscribed shape will have a larger side length (and perimeter) than the inscribed one. Hope this helps. @Zac: Yep, the Taylor series will be fun. I want to think about it more to see if I can find some insights that link it to everyday analogies . And 50 digits of pi is pretty precise, enough to estimate

the size of the universe to 1 atoms precision, I think.

@Miguel: Thanks for the comment, glad you like math. I think most students know 22/7 (or 3.1416) is just an estimate for pi, not an exact value. @Anonymous: Dont believe everything you read! @Cheeseburger: Thats interesting, Archimedes made this technique famous but others may have used it as well. 16. Ashwin Mudigonda on June 2, 2008 at 10:42 am said: I have a question at the very first assumption in the two squares case: How did you make the assumption (assuming precalculus and calculator days and all that) that 2.8 17. Kalid on June 2, 2008 at 11:09 pm said: Hi Ashwin, the comment form may have eaten your comment. 1/sqrt(2) comes from the Pythagorean theorem its actually sqrt(2)/2 (which is the same thing), and sqrt(2) can be approximated using various algorithms: its more than 1, less than 2. Its more than 5/4 (5/4 squared = 25/16 which is less than 2), and less than 6/4 (6/4 squared is 36/16 which is more than 2). Not sure if that was the question but feel free to ask again, sorry about the form. 18. phyu on June 5, 2008 at 3:49 pm said: in your spreadsheet pi = 355/133 , u can knock this down to 22/7 19. Kalid on June 5, 2008 at 8:06 pm said: Hi phyu, 22/7 is an approximation for pi, but it isnt as accurate as 355/113. Check out the Cranking the Formula section for more details. 20. Holy on June 6, 2008 at 2:55 pm said:

@ phyu 355/113 actually simplifies to 22/~7.0028169014084507042253521126761 the higher up in the fractions you go the farther from 7 the bottom number becomes, which falls right in line with the numeration given in Kalids chart. Also @ Kalid very nice job in the compilation, always nice to see some interesting math facts! 21. anna on June 6, 2008 at 8:59 pm said: such a great article! i was really happy that you included that little bit of life lesson at the end there. i have a tattoo of pi to remind myself that life doesnt always make perfect sense :] 22. Kalid on June 9, 2008 at 10:08 am said: @Holy: Thanks for the comment and additional details! @Anna: Glad you enjoyed it! Dont think Ive ever met anyone with a pi tattoo but thats pretty intriguing . Yep, I think math (or any subject) should enhance your outlook, not just teach facts.

23. Jo on June 28, 2008 at 4:02 am said: Quite an enlightening article. The basics are all so clearly explained. Thank you very much. 24. Karl on June 29, 2008 at 6:38 am said: Hi there. First of all, thanks for the article. I think Ive got a silly question., but its driving me nuts! My intuition keeps telling me that the inside perimeter (sin(x/2) above) and outside perimeter (tan(x/2) above) should be the same equation its the same shape, just bigger, so the formula should be the same with larger values for x. Can you tell me what Im missing? 25. Kalid on June 29, 2008 at 7:26 am said: Hi Karl, thats a great question! I had to think about it a bit.

Youre right, the two shapes (large and small square, large and small octagon) should have the same formula, scaled by some amount. The tricky thing is to realize that x/2 (the angle) should be *the same* in both cases; the angles dont change no matter what size square you have. You want to start with a formula (call it f(x) ) and scale it by some amount, called C: f(x) and C * f(x). Looking closer, this is whats happening: sin(x/2) is the basic formula, and tan(x/2) is really sin(x/2) / cos(x/2). Since cosine is between 0-1, the division will actually be a multiplication or scaling. So tan(x/2) is always larger than sin(x/2), giving us the scaling factor we need. Again, great question sin(x/2) and tan(x/2) are really the same formula, but scaled by 1/cos(x/2). Phew .

26. Kalid on June 29, 2008 at 7:39 am said: @Jo: Thanks, glad it was helpful. 27. enki on December 2, 2008 at 7:58 am said: Great articles Kalid, any similar insights or an intuitive approach you could share on eulers identity ? This explanation for pi is the one we were actually thought in school, and we were thought about e through continuous growth. (as in the article on e on this site). Both make perfect sense to me but Im still blown away by eulers identity ( e(i.pi)+1 = 0 ). What is the meaning of this relation between e, i and pi .. is there an intuitive way to look at this you are aware of ? 28. Kalid on January 11, 2009 at 12:08 am said: @enki: Whoops, sorry about the late response, think I missed this. There is an intuitive way to approach Eulers identity that Id like to write about (the book Visual Complex Analysis has a take on it, which I highly recommend). Basically, you can view it as a linkage between growth and rotation but Ill be writing about this topic in the future. 29. Geo on February 15, 2009 at 11:20 am said: The minimum number of side to get 100% accuracy is 4070364

30. Kalid on February 20, 2009 at 5:53 pm said: @Geo: Yep, thats the point at which the calculator cant tell the difference 31. Jeff on March 29, 2009 at 4:20 pm said: Great article. This is one of the reasons why I have heard the circle referred to as an infinigon. 32. Kalid on March 29, 2009 at 5:55 pm said: @Jeff: Hah, I like it! 33. balakrishnan on April 21, 2009 at 11:35 am said: i have derived a formula for pi which approximates the value of pi. pi = lim n*cos((180/n) 90) n->infinity higher the value of n, more accurate the value of pi. i have derived it based on inscribing a polygon in circle. variable n represents number of sides of polygon. 34. rishi on July 15, 2009 at 8:00 am said: I dont understand why pi is an irrational number. Cant you just measure the circumference accurately and then divide by the diameter there you have a rational fraction. I cant see how a constant derived by real division can be an irrational number. 35. Kalid on July 15, 2009 at 2:26 pm said: @rishi: Great question. The problem with drawing and measuring a circle is that theres no such thing as a perfect circle. Anything you draw is just a collection of points (each drop of ink, or each molecule of ink!) and is therefore a very large polygon, maybe with billions of sides. We can measure the circumference of this polygon, but it wont be pi, just a very close guess. After all, we could have added more sides and got a better guess. .

One way to see the irrational, neverending decimal is to consider pi the result of an infinite process (adding more and more sides to a polygon to approximate a circle), one we can approximate but never write out completely. Hope this helps! 36. Eric on July 16, 2009 at 7:44 am said: I like the write-up very much, but find the title a little misleading. You give a good description of applying Archimedes method of calculating the numerical value of pi. In fact, this type of successive approximation is useful for computing many other interesting values as well. To many, however, the discovery of pi is the realization that the ratio of circumference to diameter is the same for ALL circles. Without that, we wouldnt be talking about the circumference of a unit circle, nor would that value have a special name (pi). Adding an intuitive description of that discovery to your write-up would really make it shine. 37. Kalid on July 16, 2009 at 11:48 am said: @Eric: Great question! I think another article would be warranted for that general idea of proving that all circles are similar (proportional to each other). There is an ancient proof here: http://school.maths.uwa.edu.au/~schultz/3M3/L6Euclid.html but yes, itd be a great topic. Thanks for the suggestion. 38. Sapan on August 8, 2009 at 4:16 am said: The idea that the newOutside is the harmonic mean and the newInside is the geometric mean is not very intuitive. Why is newOut being derived from the perimeter of the previous inside and previous outside, similarly with geometric mean? 39. Simon on August 12, 2009 at 8:48 pm said:

Thanks for the great write up. Im returning to calculus after 20 years and your article is helping me finally internalize something Ive never grasped before. 40. Kalid on August 13, 2009 at 1:51 am said: @Simon: Awesome, glad it was helpful for you! @Sapan: Yes, I struggle with that too I dont have an intuitive understanding of why it would be the geometric and harmonic mean to figure out those ratios. Right now my understanding is at the level of the math works .

41. Dedic on September 8, 2009 at 12:12 am said: I actually came up with Archimedes method on my own but I started with a triangle and kept going with more polygons (basically each side of the triangle got another triangle, and so on). Basic geometry got me from the perimeter of one poly to the next. Using my PC i was able to calculate pi to a million decimal places rather quickly (i did a text-compare with one i found online and it was right). I thought i may have stumbled on something new but later i found out it was not so. The only interesting thing was that it was recursive and used only basic geometry (right triangles). 42. Kalid on September 8, 2009 at 12:23 am said: @Dedic: Thats a cool story theres always something to be said for the joy of discovery, even if you werent the first to do so .

43. Shankar on February 27, 2010 at 3:52 am said: Hi Kalid, Wonderful post Im actually a young guy and new to complex stuff but u make it look easy.. A question : Is a straight line a part of a large circle ??? 44. Kalid on February 27, 2010 at 2:41 pm said:

@Shankar: Glad you liked it! Hrm, Im not sure what you mean i.e., is a circle made up of straight line segments? A perfect circle seems never has two points on a perfect line (i.e. if you rotate the circle only one of the points will be rightmost, you cant have both vertically above each other) but reality is quite different .

45. Shankar on March 5, 2010 at 11:52 pm said: Hi Kalid.What i meant was that a road seems perfectly straight to us..however its just a part of a large circle called earth So if we keep on extending a straight line on both sides infinitely, will we get a large circle ???? 46. Shankar on March 6, 2010 at 12:19 am said: And one more thing How can we be sure that pi is an irrational number.??. Maybe after the 100 billionth number after the decimal point, it may repeat itself, thus making it a rational number. 47. Ali Adams on July 2, 2010 at 1:31 am said: Dear Khalid, Grate article and will look out for other article by you. Regarding: PI ~= 335/113 On PI day (3.14) a french lady emailed me a gift that further to my Quran and Prime Numbers reseach, the 355 days in a Hijri leap year divided by the chapters of The Message (113 chapters) is a very close approximation to PI. PI ~= days in a year cycle (circumference) divide by the number of chapters of the message (stright path, diameter) Here is a summary for all your readers about the prime numbers in the Quran.

Quran = Key + Message 114 chapters = 1 (Al-Fatiha) + 113 (Remaining chapters) 6236 verses = 7 of The Key + 6229 of The Message The Key has 7 verses, 29 words, 139 letters) all are primes, with prime digit sums (7=7, 2+9=11, 1+3+9=13) and amazingly concatnating them left-to-right (729139) and right-to-left (139297) also primes with primes digit sums (7+2+9+1+3+9=31) The rest can be found at http://www.heliwave.com pr http://www.primalogy.com. Make sure not to miss the 355 days of chapter The Merciful that map to the leap Hijri year 1433AH = 2012 I suspect the Hijir year becomes leap evey PI years Ali Adams God > infinity 48. G. W. Carlisle on July 6, 2010 at 9:41 am said: Great article very informative and helpful, the only think I could see needing some furthre explainging this quote faster than finding the closest answer from the outset What is outset? 49. Kalid on July 6, 2010 at 10:14 am said: @GW: Ah, I just meant rather than finding the closest answer immediately, from the very beginning. 50. Joe on October 25, 2010 at 5:58 am said: Great article. I think one of my face-palming moments was when I realized that pi was the result of infinitely improving the number. (This also helped me to understand transcendental numbers, since you need an infinite series of algebraic formulas to reach it.) a PI in the Sky if you like

What I think is particularly interesting is how something infinitely complex can make formulas so simple. Instead of picking an approximation (since, a lot of the time, we dont know ahead of time what this should be), we use the pure number pi to allow somebody else to approximate later. Not only that, but it makes the formula easier to read as well by encapsulating the complexity in a single constant. Truly beautiful. (Side note: working with image processing and other forms of computer graphics, I sometimes wish pi was initially measured with the radius instead of the diameter. That way, we could use the constant itself instead of writing 2*pi everywhere. The constant really only represents half of the shape of a circle.) 51. Matthew Heardy on December 2, 2010 at 2:43 pm said: I really enjoyed this article, and it makes complete sense why Archimedes used this method, although i would have never thought of it on my own. I liked the style of the writing too, very easy to understand. The one thing is didnt understand was the formula for perimeter of the inside and outside shapes. I dont understand why we use sin. Other than that great article 52. Joe on January 12, 2011 at 5:00 pm said: Why was this never explained like this in high school? 53. Kalid on February 4, 2011 at 5:30 pm said: @Joe: Thanks for the comment! Yeah, one of the weird things about pi is that its never done i.e., when does a shape with infinite sides become a circle? It raises all sorts of interesting philosophical questions too i.e., we use pi for calculations but will never encounter a perfect circle in the real world. But the beauty, as you say, is that we encapsulate this whole concept into a symbol which is use the best approximation of the perfect circle that you can... I agree on the pi vs. 2*pi thing have you seen http://tauday.com/? @Matthew: Thanks! Great question on the formula theres an explanation on why sine is used here: http://personal.bgsu.edu/~carother/pi/Pi3b.html

but Id like to cover it in more depth myself. Thanks again for the note! 54. eczeno on April 23, 2011 at 7:23 am said: this is a wonderful article. thank you. there is only one place where i disagree. I would say that pi can hide but not run instead of the other way around. cheers 55. Kalid on April 24, 2011 at 12:18 am said: @eczeno: Thanks! Yep, to each their favorite phrasing 56. David on July 10, 2011 at 7:33 pm said: Wow!great information on pi this has really widen my view abt maths.maths is becoming interesting to me.thanks 4 making it interesting.ill love 2b a mathematician. 57. mel on October 14, 2011 at 12:38 am said: funny, i just only understood the point of taylor series while reading your article on intro to calculus. and its right on this page! thanks for giving me a wonderful Aha! moment. love your site. if you ever watched the movie 3 idiots, you remind me of one character, Rancho. I hope that turned out as a compliment. more success on this and other ideas of yours! .

58. Kalid on October 16, 2011 at 10:51 pm said: @mel: Thanks for the kind words! Really happy the site is helping with those ahas. I havent seen the movie but have heard much about it! 59. Chao on March 29, 2012 at 6:55 am said: Sides = 4037146 is the first here to show up as 100% Accuracy

Just so you dont keep trying LIKE I DID. 60. Danylla Alencar on May 2, 2012 at 10:14 am said: eu amo estudar sobre o numero pi!!!!!!!!!!!!1 61. brooke on June 7, 2012 at 3:48 am said: Is there another article after this? Im probably not looking properly, but I want to read on!! 62. kalid on June 8, 2012 at 11:47 am said: @brooke: Check out the Calculus category for more on this theme! http://betterexplained.com/articles/category/math/calculus/ I need to add related posts after each one, thanks for helping me realize 63. Soulreader on September 9, 2012 at 7:40 am said: I appologize at start if my english is not perfect it is not my native language, so I express myself on english not as I want, but as I can. I will try to express my opinion on the best possible way. It is a true that our science becomes materialistic and I studied electrical engineering on that way, never thinking about spiritual way of what I learned untill one day, when I figured out something about the numbers and I find the open book in front of myself that never ends. Squering the circle means to know how to generate number pi, how to generate its next digit, and not only that. Squering the circle means also to be able to measure how long some curve line is. To measure curve line it means you have to compare it with some streight line, but it is hard to fit them, isnt it? So, squering the circle is the same as comparing curve line and streight line and finding their corelation as comparing soul and body and find the corelation as comparing man and woman and find the corelationas comparering good and evel and find the corelation. Please watch the numbers 012345678910 but only as a forms.curve- 0, streight line 1, combination 2, only curves 3, only streight lines 4, combination 5, combination 6, streight .

lines 7, curves 8, combination 9, streight line -1, curve 0.Some of them are extremes (only curve or only streight lines) some of them are balance (combination). Each number has its own pair 01, 25, 34, 69, 78, 10 complicated as much as it is, but on some way opposite. Now place them in the number pias you go more and more discovering number pi as a multiform you actualy know more about each its digit, about extremes and about balance. As long you go from digit to digit of the number pi you will find out at start was circle, at the end is circle conection between these two is long, narrow and unsecure path very few people are following on the right way these days, holding faith in their souls as a small light of the candel. 64. frank kerry on October 28, 2012 at 10:50 am said: the equation above is wrong dipshit, the inner squares side doesnt equal .7, it equals the square root of .5 . pythagoras states in the above equation that a+b^2=c^2 .5^2 + .5^2=c^2 .5=c^2 c= (.5) not .7 as stated above. just thought id let you know