Chapter 1 - Introduction

Section 1.1 - Why Study Calculus Section 1.2 - Why Not to Study Calculus

Section 1.1 - Why Study Calculus

As a student you probably view calculus as another illogical memorization of equations that one needs to pass through school. You feel you will never be called upon to use any of the 'hypothetical gibberish' that you learn. Consequently, you approach the subject with philosophical indifference and adapt yourself to endure that which you can not cure. Perhaps somewhere behind this ill-sentiment is the belief that calculus is a necessary tool for your existence in the real-world. Regardless of how one defines a successful existence, an understanding of calculus is not essential to your well-being. In fact it is an overstatement to claim that one needs it to become even a scientist. After all, many professional engineers do not hesitate to admit their ignorance of the subject. Such engineer's understanding of calculus is limited to knowing the equations and knowing how to use them. If an engineer has a good feel for what to expect based on experience, then number crunching is not so important. The best engineers only need the number crunching to confirm what they think the result may be. So far this introduction has only succeeded in confirming what you may already feel about your study of calculus, i.e it's a meaningless waste of time! Why do you have to be bothered learning it while others get by with absolutely no understanding of it? What more can there be to calculus apart from memorization, manipulation and frustration? Without fueling your growing suspicions any further, let us return to the original question and answer it from a purely non-materialistic point of view. Why study calculus? This question is best answered with another question; What is calculus about? It is extremely difficult to answer this briefly and convincingly for that would require paraphrasing this entire book into just a few lines of text. I could present you with a series of situations where calculus is applied but that would give you the false impression that practical applications and mathematical theory are linked together by chance alone. The simplest definition I can offer is that calculus is the study of mathematically defined change. There are two words in that definition that require further explanation before it can make sense. These words are mathematics and change . What is mathematics? Essentially mathematics is nothing more than the language of science. While science is a systematic study of nature, mathematics is a concise form of communication used to represent nature. Man's faculty of reason allow him to observe, dissect and hypothesize nature and all its ongoing processes such that the end result of this orderly analysis is mathematics. But what is meant by science and nature? Rather than continue with questions answered only by generalizations, let us begin this study of calculus with a study of Man. What makes man act, think, feel, move and function? The subject of philosophy is devoted entirely to answering questions like these, though it often asks more than it is prepared to answer. Life around us constantly challenges us to live and respond to the seemingly impossible and unfathomable. We are confronted with dilemmas that require our judgment.

However, the code of ethics and morals we live by turn out to be nothing more than a set of ironic contradictions. We find ourselves surrounded by a sea of chaos. Life then carries us through this sea of confusion, never stopping anywhere to drop us at a destination. Life appears futile with no meaning in sight. Is man confined to this helpless state of existence? To be honest, no one knows the answer. We can, however, look for hope in the mind. The power of thought, reason and logic are what allow man to seize control of life and ultimately serve as a guide to enlightenment and wisdom. Aristotle felt that happiness could only be achieved by cultivating the mind. He wrote: Now the peculiar excellence of man is his power of thought; it is by this faculty that he surpasses and rules other forms of life; and as the growth of this faculty has given him supremacy, so, we may presume, its development will give him fulfillment and happiness. This leads to the question, How do we define reason?. This is synonymous with asking how do thoughts define behavior? As a child you had little control over your actions. There did not seem to be any purpose behind what you did or what happened to you. Life carried you along, giving you the freedom to enjoy the ride. The idea of free-will offers a more plausible explanation of human actions. It says that man has the freedom of choice to decide on a certain course of action. Actions are the results of choices; choices which we are free to make. The branch of philosophy known as determinism takes free-will a step further to explain why man chooses to act in one way over another. When man is confronted with a situation, the line of action he decided on taking is based on experience, personal interests and preferences. The decisions we make are thus entirely influenced by our past experiences. The will is not free to behave on its own. For example my decision to write this book was not based on some impulsive instinct but on a culmination of circumstances I was exposed to and reacted against. Any action from the most random to the most perverse can be explained by the set of situations, experiences, thoughts and feelings that preceded that action. Essentially determinism says that our lives are predetermined to the extent that regardless of how we live we can never change our course of life. As a French thinker once said , " We change yet we remain the same ". The logic behind this statement is that if our past can never be changed then our future will always remain the same. Each action is dictated by the previous one. It is at this point where science and art diverge. For the scientist, determinism is an accurate enough explanation of human life, as it says that everything that occurs, occurs for a set of reasons. Observing and understanding these set of reasons becomes the work of the scientist. The artist, however, interprets determinism as saying, 'Since everything in life is predetermined then life is meaningless'. Life may have no meaning but it is the goal of the artist to question that statement by exploring the mysterious depths of human nature and the heart. Perhaps it is the utter randomness of life that causes us to ignore our unchanging destiny. No human being has any control over actions that he or she will be exposed to. Fate begins to lose meaning as one never knows what will happen to oneself. It takes the risks of the artist to create chaos from which wisdom evolves.

On the other hand, the study of nature is more precise and is less likely to be influenced by a wide variety of unrelated factors. Within natures all actions, occurrences, or changes are dependent on a few factors that can be carefully isolated and studied individually. Science is specifically about analyzing these interacting systems and then forming hypothesis that can accurately explain them. What makes observing phenomena in nature so interesting is that they always occur in a closed setting where external factors can easily be removed to leave behind just a few interacting objects. It is these objects along with their properties, that become the focus of study. Any attempt to logically explain their unique interaction must come from the objects themselves and not from imaginary external factors. Through reasoning and observation, nature can be understood, such that the future can be determined from the present. As Sherlock Holmes would often warn Watson, " You see but you do not observe!" . Often enough, human beings fail to grasp this simple rule of nature by ignorantly attributing any naturally occurring phenomena to the Gods, heavens, or some mysterious substance with superpowers. Understanding and accepting the truth requires an open and critical mind. Charlotte Bronte humorously wrote about this ironic flaw of human nature in her popular novel, Shirley. Note well! Whenever you present the actual, simple, truth, it is somehow always denounced as a lie: they disown it, cast it off, throw it on the parish; whereas the product of your own imagination, the mere figment, the sheer fiction, is adapted, termed pretty, proper, sweetly natural: the little spurious wretch gets all the comfits - the honest, lawful bantling all the cuffs. Such is the way of the world...". Not only is science stymied by ignorance and deception, but it is also muddled by the work of the pseudo-scientist. The pseudo-scientist is described by the Spanish philosopher, Jose Ortega, in his stunning book on modern western civilization, The Revolt of the Masses: "... By 1890 a third generation takes command in the intellectual world, and we find a type of scientist without precedent in history. He is a person who knows, of all that a routinely dutiful man must know, only something of one specific science; even of this science, he is well informed only within that limited area in which he is an active researcher. He may even go so far as to claim he has an advantage in not cultivating what lies outside his own narrow field, and he may declare that curiosity about general knowledge is the sign of the amateur, the dilettante. Immured within his small area, he succeeds in discovering new facts, advances the science which he scarcely knows, and increases perforce the encyclopedia of knowledge of which he is conscientiously ignorant..." Physics Nobel laureate Richard Feynman wrote the following observations about the different types of pseudo-scientists he met at a conference. Most of the scientists' work fell into one of these categories: 1. Completely ununderstandable 2. Vague and indefinite 3. Something correct that is obvious and self-evident, worked out by a long and difficult analysis and presented as an important discovery 4. A claim based on the stupidity of the author that some obvious and correct thing accepted and checked for years is in fact false

5. An attempt to do something probably impossible but of certainly no utility which it is finally revealed at the end fails 6. Just plain wrong One of the remarkable masterpieces of the mind is the science of mathematics, often called the science of deductive reasoning. While science is a logical system of thought used to study the natural world; mathematics is the precise language of science. It is the form of communication for scientific analysis. Number and symbols are nothing more than vague abstractions unless they refer to something specific. Before mathematics can exist there must be a situation to give it meaning. It is scientific analysis that determines the structure of mathematics. Through mathematics we are able to define the present. The present is only dependent on the conditions that exist within the short frame of time that it occupies. Quickly it vanishes before our eyes, becoming a memory. The goal of science is to define the objective world in terms of existing quantifiable conditions expressed by mathematics. Our dimensions or properties remain fixed and do not change. It is when our dimensions change that our study becomes a bit more complicated and calculus arises. But first, what is meant by change? To understand change we need to explain the concept of time. By definition, time is a passage of events, such that for time to pass, something must change with respect to itself. For example a moving object implies a changing distance covered from a reference point. This comprises an event that defines time. Or a rising temperature implies that the temperature is changing , thus occupying time. Changes are the results of actions that comprise a situation. While calculus is the study of mathematically defined change, it is not necessarily the study of time alone. In science other dimensions can be changing with respect to each other. For example velocity can change with height, temperature change with energy, density change with depth, force change with mass etc. When a dimension is changing with respect to itself, we say it is changing with respect to time. When factors change with respect to each other, we disregard the effect time has on the factors and proceed to only analyze the interacting dimensions. We assume our factors are constant that change with respect to each other, not with time. Calculus is thus the branch of mathematics used to study any phenomena involving change . Change is a relative concept that can involve any pair of dimensions, time, force, mass, length, temperature etc. This may sound a bit abstract but it will become much clearer as we follow through the course. This concludes the answer to what calculus is about. You may not feel I answered the original posted question, " Why study calculus?". The purpose of studying calculus is simply to introduce your mind to the scientific method of analysis. Through science, practical problems can be identified, explanations generated and logical solutions selected. The aim is for you to understand how to apply your mind in a systematic manner toward understanding the world around you. Engineering relies more on this fundamental logical approach toward problem solving than it does on sheer number crunching and formula manipulation. For this reason many engineers have forgotten all the theorems of calculus, but what remains is the important conceptual framework of method and application. Engineers often jokingly admit " We don't know all the math but we do know the end-result ! "

Good engineering sense is defined as the ability to quickly identify a problem, come up with practical solutions and then select the most efficient option. Many real-world problems are independent of any complex mathematics, but the same systematic scientific approach is required to solve them. The application of sound logic is all that is required to reduce complexities to simplicities. Early in the introduction I stated that it was an over-statement to claim that one needs calculus to become a scientist. Those engineers and scientists who got by with a cursory knowledge of the subject fall into the realm of the pseudo-scientist and charlatan. As Ortega wrote, the pseudo-scientist, "advances the science which he scarcely knows, and increases perforce the encyclopedia of knowledge of which he is conscientiously ignorant...". It is the thrill and enlightenment of understanding nature that drives the scientist. The engineer takes science a step further to control nature to suit man's needs. Both the engineer and scientist share a deep appreciation for the workings of nature; an appreciation that develops into wisdom. Therefore, the purpose of studying calculus is two-fold. First is to introduce you to the basic concepts of mathematics used to study almost any type of changing phenomena within a controlled setting. Second, studying calculus will develop invaluable scientific sense and practical engineering problem solving skills in you. You will understand how to think logically to reduce even the most complex systems to a few interacting components. As you study the main concepts, theories and examples in this book, your mind will develop into a powerful systematic instrument. To conclude on a humorous note, read the following satirical essay from The Onion in the chapter on 1925 in their book, Our Dumb Century. Should we teach our children facts? No, I say, a thousand times no! As they grow into tomorrow's farmers, housewives, mill workers, and coal miners, facts are the last things they will need. Manners! Subservience! Above all, obedience! To speak only when spoken to, and not to cause trouble! These are the principles upon which our educational system was grounded. Why in the name of God should we replace it with a system that actually encourages an ignorant man to ask questions? A good citizen does nothing of the sort. He is content with the reasons he is given by his betters.

Questions
1. Has God created man or man created God? Some say man and nature are too well made to happen at random. The many physical laws of this universe must be made by a creator just as traffic laws are made by man. While evolution may appear random, it is actually an accumulation of infinite changes over time. What we see is just the current state, not the infinite layers that have been set down over eternity. For this reason, it is easy to conclude the current state is too perfect to understand. But when you study how each layer of evolution happens, it becomes quite easy to understand how complexity can be achieved from the simplest of changes accumulated over time. Comment on this question with regards to your views on religion and science. 2. The paradox of life is that one must suffer to enjoy it. Or consider the quote by the father of the modern Olympic movement, " The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to

have fought well. " What do you think? Is life about achievements or the journey to those achievements? 3. The world contains thousands of cultures. Each culture has its own set of morals and standards which the society tries to live by . What one culture considers good, another culture may consider it taboo. While most people are fundamentally good, there is little consistency among socially accepted behavior. Are morals absolute or do they exist only relative to each other? In other words do you think certain actions can be judged as pure good or evil, regardless of personal upbringing? What aspects of your culture could be perceived as strange or negative to someone of a different culture?

Section 1.2 - Why Not to Study Calculus

The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago has an impressive submarine from the second World War on display. The size of it is awesome, appearing as large as the biggest commercial airliner. However, the most fascinating aspect is not its size but the complexity of systems within it.

The submarine's sixteen cylinder diesel and electric engines are a marvel of wires and pistons all intricately connected in tight confines. Furthurmore, pumps, gauges and hydraulics are plastered all over within it. One can only imagine the tragic consequences should any one of these many components fail.

The complexity of this 60 year old submarine makes one wonder how this was built with any degree of reliability? Was it the creation of an isolated team of engineers who were just lucky to design it right?

The reality is the design evolved over decades from the field history of many prior designs. Each design took the collective effort of teams of engineers, technicians and skilled laborers. Specialized teams only worked on their niche. For example, the torpedos have complex mechanical gyroscopes, acoustic honing devices, electric motors and magnetic detonators. Each alone took dedicated engineering to design successfully.

Cumulatively, millions of man hours went into making one successful design. It then astounds your mind to grasp the massive effort invested into making not just one, but all the hundreds of submarines in use during the war! Consider another example, an aircraft engine which puts many engineering disciplines into conflict: aerodynamics, mechanical stress, noise and vibration, heat transfer, material properties, reliability, fatigue life prediction and more. Furthuremore, aircraft manufacturers demand efficient operation, long life and short delivery cycles. It used to take ten years to develop a new aircraft engine but the industry today aims for an average of only two. The picture below shows the incredible amount of cutting-edge analysis that goes into the design of just one component of the engine, the compressor blade.

At the same time, aircraft engine makers are targeting low costs for the design, manufacturing and maintenance. So it is no surprise the industry of making all this possible is competitive, demanding and expensive. In other words, it is highly evolved and larger than any single person could do themselves. After considering all this, one realizes that the war industry takes an entire nation to support. People can not put blame on a "single crazed leader". It is everyday people toiling away that creates these complex weapons of destruction. There is a saying in Haiti, "Don't play with the hungry dog". People under desperate circumstances will abandon all sense of humanity in order to preserve their way of life. Herd mentality takes over, wherein viscous behavior is acceptable so long as everyone else thinks nothing of it. A famous quote from the Vietnam-US conflict was, " You will kill 10 of our men, and we will kill 1 of yours, and in the end it will be you who tire of it. " On the other hand one can not be judgemental and blame things on "pure evil". Another saying that shows how things need to be viewed relative to their circumstances is, "One man's genocide is another man's freedom fight". Great cruelty occurs when the ignorant populace will use any justification to preserve their threatened way of life. It is a kill or be killed world where self-survival is all that matters. " You will never see the source of a genocide. It is buried too deep in grudges, under an accumulation of misunderstandings that we were last to inherit. We came of age at the worst moment in Rwanda's history: we were taught to obey absolutely, raised in hatred, stuffed with slogans. We are an unfortunate generation." Joseph-Desire, killer - from Rwandan Stories

Unfortunately, there is no overnight solutions to complex situations like these. They evolve over decades of accumulated prejudices and injusticies until they reach a tipping point. Simple education, understanding and empathy for our fellow human beings is usually enough to disperse these feelings. Unfortunately, even this is asking too much as people prefer a life of complacency to one of education. Furthuremore, human beings are inherently selfish and there is little that can be done to change the way we are "hardwired". Whatever its scale, war is made up of individual acts, and individual choices to perform them. So human individuals need to make the commitment, as early in life as possible, that they will have no part with it. We must remember we are all human beings and everyone in this planet is our family. We all experience pain and joy equally and labels to divide us are meaningless. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948 states: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

Last, consider what Dwight David Eisenhower, said: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. " As this article has shown, engineering can be used to create incredible designs meant to do terribly cruel and inhuman things. Broadly educate yourself so you can make decisions of morality based on your experiences, not based on what someone tells you to believe. After all, it is Adolf Hitler who said, " What luck for the rulers that men do not think ".

Section 2.1 - Numbers and their Uses

What is a number? What do all those abstract symbols floating about really mean? To begin with, we can define the number as an existence. So if I had a few tennis balls, the number of balls would simply refer to how many individual tennis balls I am actually holding. 4 balls would mean four existences or :

2 balls would mean

A number therefore does not depend on any specific quality of the object. 10 balls and 10 eggs are the same number of things. Now that we have defined the number as something created by the human mind to count objects, then let us proceed to examine the Laws of Arithmetic. The laws of arithmetic are based on the addition and multiplication of numbers. But what does it mean to add two or three numbers together? To begin with addition assumes that all your numbers refer to something and that thing is the same throughout. So 3 pens added with 3 pens is six pens. We are bringing together all our things and then counting the sum. So:

In multiplication we are doing something a bit different, we are creating multiples of a number. When we multiply two numbers x and y : we are creating y multiples of x which is the same as adding x with itself y times. This can also be thought of as a grid of x rows and y columns where the product of the numbers is the sum of all the objects inside the grid. So 4 * 6 is:

In this example we only added 4 with itself 6 times and summed up the number we got. This is all that multiplication is about, creating multiples of a number or just repetitive addition. Multiplication of two numbers x and y can therefore be expressed as:

or 3*7 is: 7 + 7 + 7

You are probably asking what is the use of such an operation or why is multiplying numbers an important thing in mathematics. It is fairly obvious how it is used when a baker wants to find the total cost of 42 cupcakes at $2/cupcake. The answer is 42*2. But is not so easy to understand for example why in Newton's second Law of Motion:

or why interest earned in money is:

The reason multiplication dominates these equations and so many others depends entirely on the context of the equation and where it is derived from. As we study many equations in this book the difference between multiplication and addition will become clearer. We have studied integers which refer to full existences such as 2 books, 4 cats and 110 bananas. But what about half a candy bar or a third of a day? When the existence or object is broken up into equal parts we say we are dividing and we use fractions to represent the division. Division is essentially the opposite or inverse operation of multiplication. Whereas multiplication creates equal sets of a number, division creates equal sub-sets within the number. The fractions that are used to represent division are often written as: where the bottom number refers to how many pieces the object has been broken into. For

example the following rod has been broken into 8 partitions where each small block is: of the original object:

th

We can now define x divided by y to be where y indicates the number of equal parts an object is subdivided into and x indicates how many parts you have. The relationship between multiplication and division is best expressed by the equation, x on top of the y it tells us that there are x times or x parts of If there is an

Whereas division creates sub-sets within an object, multiplication creates sets outside the object. Dividing an object by another number x, creates x sub-sets within the object such that multiplying one sub-set by x give the original object again. For this reason multiplication and division are called inverse operation of each other. We can now state the five laws of arithmetic: 1) A + B = B + A

2) A + ( B + C)= ( A + B) + C 3) AB = BA

4) A(BC) = (AB)C

The fourth property is saying that multiplication of more than two numbers is independent of the order they are multiplied in. 5) A( B + C)= AB + AC

To this point our discussion of numbers has been limited to positive numbers but what about negative numbers? Before discussing what it means to have -3 books let us look at the number 0. Just as numbers define an amount of something, so we must have a way of defining nothing. Zero, therefore represents nothing or no-existence. It is just as much a number as 6 or 7 is. For example:

As we shall study, zero is an important number as it helps in solving equations and defining infinity. Negative numbers, in the simplest sense, are used to define those numbers that are the result of a larger number being subtracted from a smaller one. Imagine a man who has six pens. A young man comes to buy eight pens. How many are left? The answer is not 0 but 2. The shopkeeper sells all six, but he still needs two to give to the man. Negative numbers can therefore be thought of as numbers that do not exist but should exist. They become positive when they take on a physical existence otherwise they are missing pieces in a puzzle. Our discussion of numbers has been limited to objects. This need not be the case. Numbers can be used to represent abstract existences such as 2 days, 3 years, 4 classes, etc. Recall how we defined the number to be meaningless without referring to something. Three books meant one book + one book + one book. The number can also be thought of as a repetition of an occurrence. A day is defined as the rising of the sun, setting, then rising again. This action is cyclical and continues indefinitely . We can therefore refer to each cycle of the sun rising as one day and four days would then represent four cycles of the sun rising. Here we have extended the definition of the number to not only include objects but also actions. The difference between an action and an object is a difficult one to explain. While an object represents something we can see, touch, hold and feel, an action is only that which happens. Actions refer to change or movement. Therefore, an action's existence is defined by what takes place during that time frame of a beginning and an end. Numbers are not limited to objects and actions alone, they can also be used to count ideas and other abstract concepts that exist only in the mind. Simply by existing in the mind means it can be counted. When somebody says I have two things to say to you, each thing

is made up of a different choice of words, phrases, not to mention the action or object it may refer to. To conclude our discussion of the number here is a short definition. Number - A symbol used to express an object's, action's or abstraction's repetitive nature.

Section 2.2 - Interpreting Numbers

Two times zero is still zero and half of infinity is still infinity. If you want to develop good engineering judgment you need to understand the profound meaning of this perspective on zero and infinity. When dealing with very small numbers, it makes no difference in the greater scheme of things whether the number is doubled or not. The number will still be a small number and needs to be interpreted that way. Similarly when dealing with large numbers, even if you halve the number you still are left with a large number. For all numbers in between you can use relative comparisons , however, for small and large numbers, one needs to understand that relative comparisons may not hold true. You are probably confused as to what defines a really large and small number. Relative does not have any absolute number interpretation. Relative comparison only has meaning in relation to what you are comparing to. You have to use engineering judgment to see what range most numbers fall within. For example, a transportation engineer measuring average traffic flow on a highway will see most speeds fall within 45-65 mph. The engineer only needs to focus on speeds in that range and ignore the really small speeds close to zero. The slowest car in one highway may be 30 mph and in another highway could be 10 mph. This does not mean the first highway has a 300% higher average speed of slow cars. It means both those speeds are well below the average speed and cannot be compared to each other. The example next will explain this in more detail. Consider an engineer who is given a half-sphere of material and is asked to build a stool from it that will be supported at three points. The engineer needs to find the optimal load path to support a person sitting on the top of the sphere and supported at three points equidistant apart at the base. This type of analysis is called 'Topology Optimization' and requires building a virtual model on the computer and uses equations of calculus and material science to solve a computationally intensive simulation on a supercomputer.

The picture above on the right is called the 'Optimal load path' . The way to interpret it is areas in red indicate areas of highest stress, so need material there. Areas in green are also under stress, while areas in blue have almost no stress. Actually most of the sphere is blue, however, all the blue parts of the model were taken out of the sphere so you could see the internal green and red parts of the model.

Before continuing, it will be useful to understand what stress means. Stress is an engineering concept and is simply the load or force divided by the area over which it is applied. Materials fail when the internal stress from external loads exceeds their allowable yield stress. Materials like steel have a high yield stress while those like rubber have a low yield stress. Think of this as a pin pricking you. A pin with a sharp point will be a lot more painful than a pin with a blunt point. The reason is the same load is going through a small area, thereby increasing the stress you feel. Now suppose the same problem of designing the stool were given to another engineer. This engineer will use a different software and methodology to build his virtual model. In areas where the sphere is taking no load, the results from both engineer's model should be blue or the stress should theoretically be close to zero. However one engineer says the stress in the blue area is 1 MPa, while the other says it is 2 MPa. Does this mean the second engineer is producing results with 50% error ? No , it means both engineer's analysis are outputting very small numbers which are close to zero and therefore the SAME number. Now consider you are looking at load near one of the three support points at the base. Theoretical results say the stress from load should be infinity as you have a high load going through an infinitely small point. Now one engineer says it is 6000 MPa, while the other engineer's analysis shows 3000 MPa. Again does this mean the results have 50% error? No, it means both engineer's analysis are outputting very large numbers which correlate to the trend of infinite stress and are therefore the SAME number. Too many engineers only focus on the absolute numbers when comparing analysis results. Good engineering judgment involves looking at relative differences and also seeing how large or small the numbers are when making comparisons. Another way of thinking of this is in terms of order of magnitude. Small or very large numbers within the same order of magnitude are essentially the same number for all practical purposes. This is not only true in science but all life in general. It is important to understand the concept of interpreting numbers as even many engineers with PhD's do not get it. Often those in the scientific community are too focused on the absolute details and fail to see the bigger picture around them. Another problem scientists have is reporting results with too many significant digits. For example an atmospheric scientist who says the temperature is 97.6756 Farenheit or 22.22323 Celsius is only confusing you by adding so many significant digits. They may be more 'accurate', however by increasing confusion they defeat the purpose behind reporting the number! Only report just enough digits that are truly significant. So one should report temperature to within 1 whole degree as few people can perceive differences of a tenth of a degree. Of course there are many situations where modeling the absolute response is of critical importance. It takes good engineering judgment to know when one needs to look at absolute numbers and when one needs to only look at relative differences in numbers. You are now in a much better position to interpret numbers now that you understand how relative comparisons work for large and small numbers.

Section 2.3 - Risk Assessment

" If it were up to me to add some classes to the grade school curriculum, I think I'd put more emphasis on these skills: public speaking, risk assessment, bullshit detecting, social skills, decision-making, managing your own body, and influencing people. " The Dilbert Blog - Smarter Than a 5th Grader The ability to calculate risk is what distinguishes the smart from the not so smart. As Dilbert humorously put it, risk assessment is a critical skill that is overlooked by traditional school education. In the previous section we discussed how really small numbers can often be treated the same. However, in this section we are going to learn that differences in really small numbers can mean the difference between life or death. First, what do we mean by risk assessment? Risk assessment is the ability to internally calculate the likelihood of one occurrence based on the cumulative probabilities of many interaction conditions occurring simultaneously over a period of time. Read the following article that appeared in The New Yorker by eminent surgeon, Dr. Atul Gawande. In the article, Dr. Warwick is explaining to his Cystic Fibrosis patient, Janelle, why experimenting with skipping medication is a bad idea even though it appears to not make any difference. "Let's look at the numbers, he said to me, ignoring Janelle. He went to a little blackboard he had on the wall. It appeared to be well used. A person's daily risk of getting a bad lung illness with Cystic Fibrosis ( CF ) is 0.5 per cent. He wrote the number down. Janelle rolled her eyes. She began tapping her foot. The daily risk of getting a bad lung illness with CF plus treatment is 0.05 per cent, he went on, and he wrote that number down. So when you experiment you're looking at the difference between a 99.95 % chance of staying well and a 99.5 % chance of staying well. Seems hardly any difference, right? On any given day, you have basically a 100 % chance of being well. But, he paused and took a step toward me, it is a big difference. He chalked out the calculations. Sum it up over a year, and it is the difference between an 85 % chance of making it through 2004 without getting sick and only a 15 % chance. He turned to Janelle. How do you stay well all your life? How do you become a geriatric patient?, he asked her. Her foot finally stopped tapping. I can't promise you anything. I can only tell you the odds. In this short speech was the core of Warwick's world view. He believed that excellence came from seeing, on a daily basis, the difference between being 99.5 % successful and being 99.95 % successful. Many activities are like that, of course: catching fly balls, manufacturing microchips, delivering overnight packages. Medicine's only distinction is that lives are lost in those slim margins. Let us look at another example of how to apply risk assessment to determine a safe speed to drive. Look around the next time you are on the road and you will notice at least 85% of your fellow motorists ignoring the "3 second rule," which requires a minimum of 3 seconds to account for reaction time, steering time, brake application and braking distance in case of the unexpected. It gets ignored one way or another on every street at every speed, every day. Motorists who ignore the three second rule are confusing dumb luck with skill during every commute. Most of these motorists are choosing a 1 or 2 second rule at best; a recipe for an

unavoidable crash, especially in fog. To heed the 3 second rule at 70 Mph ( 110 Kmh ), one must back off over 100 yards. Most people follow at only a few car lengths while ignoring the laws of physics. Instead they rely on their perception of supernatural braking power or angels overhead. Neither are respected by Murphy and his law. Those who apply rational and predictive driving skills behave the opposite of the speed-atany-cost mentality. Once a person truly comprehends risk, a calmness takes over, speeds drop and following distances increase. It is a rare thing to see: someone valuing staying alive over the perception of "lost time." Once you die, there is no time to contemplate how much time 90 MPH saved you on Monday! The truth is that most motorists are essentially ignorant people in a big mob, hurrying all the time. They do not understand basic risk assessment. There is no rhyme or reason to it, just impatience and self-indulgence. But the excuses flow like water! Successfully applying risk assessment involves making minor changes to your behavior with the understanding that your overall risk of a tragedy will be greatly reduced. Most people are unable to perform risk assessment because they are unable to look at long-term benefits. Instead they focus on short-term gains, i.e driving fast gets me there x minutes faster so it must be better. Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules in life. As this article and the prior article attempt to prove completely opposite points using the same facts. That is why it is so important to understand what you learn and not memorize blanket statements and generalizations. Everything has meaning only in the context to which it applies. If you continuously seek to educate yourself on everything around you then you will be in a much stronger position to make independent decisions based on reason and experience.

Section 3.1 - The Scientific Method

Science is a rational method of observing situations and then forming hypotheses to understand them. The language of science is mathematics and it is through the mathematical function that a situation can be expressed in terms of the conditions that define it. The function is thus a fundamental concept in mathematics and Calculus is the branch of mathematics dealing with functions whose dimensions change. What then is a function and how is it expressed mathematically? Before we can learn what a function is we need to understand how mathematics relates to science. The scientific method is an orderly and efficient way of analyzing physical situations. Its counterpoint, the trial and error method, is something you are probably more familiar with. Human nature inclines the mind more toward exploration and experimentation rather than systematic analysis. The trial and error method reflects the tangents that human logic takes when curiosity beckons. The scientific method, on the other hand, provides an orderly path for the mind to follow in its passage from bewilderment to enlightenment. Without following the scientific method, an analysis will remain consistently complex and any theories formed will be too general to explain the phenomena accurately. Therefore an understanding of the scientific method is crucial to your understanding of mathematics and development as a scientist. Here are its main steps. Identify the problem or situation Narrow down the problem statement while being as specific as possible. Remove external factors to leave behind a few interacting conditions. Analyze remaining conditions along with their properties with respect to the entire system. Make reasonable assumptions about the controlled situation, such as mass/ energy/ people balance etc. Understand how the conditions come together to define the situation. Determine a logical relationship among the conditions. Select the most efficient solution that accurately explains the system through the interacting conditions.

Engineering and science both follow the same systematic analysis to solve problems and understand the world. Science deals more with objective and idealized situations while engineering is often concerned with subjective situations that require sound judgment. Situations are not always defined by fixed quantifiable conditions. The importance of the scientific method is its emphasis on clear, logical, and focused thinking that can analyze a specific situation in relation to the larger system that it is part of. The method is the quickest cure for frustration and desperation. Mathematics is a reflection of the orderly analysis and conclusions of the scientific method. It is the language of science used to communicate ideas, theories and observations in a concise manner. From the scientific method, notice how the word, condition, appeared often. In mathematics condition are referred to as dimensions. The following section will take a closer look at what a dimension represents.

Section 3.2 - Nonsense Detection - The UnScientific Method

From "Piled Higher and Deeper" by Jorge Cham - www.phdcomics.com In a perfect world all scientific research could be trusted at face value. Unfortunately, the world is complex and science is not black or white. There is a lot of grey area where it is difficult to differentiate fact from opinion. Read the words of the Dalai Lama commenting on suicide bombings: " You know, science or knowledge is just a method. The thing is how to use that. Science itself is wonderful. Sometimes we use that knowledge for destruction. It's not science's mistake, it's our mistake. Similarly, some people manipulate religion in the wrong way. It's not the fault of religion, it is the fault of people and politics. People talk about dirty science. There is also dirty religion and dirty politics. " The Dalai Lama is saying that science, just like anything else, can be manipulated to prove any point. So how does one distinguish 'dirty science' from 'good science'? Unfortunately, the answer is not a simple one. There are shades of good and bad science in all research. It takes a lot of experience to know how to filter out the nonsense. This article will summarize a few categories most bad science typically falls under. If you see any research that shares elements of these categories then you should be skeptical of the results.

Many conflicting scientific theories explaining the same phenomena

If you see many conflicting theories attempting to explain a scenario, then that should raise a red flag that most of these theories are wrong. Consider Dr. Mehmet Oz, Director of the Columbia University Heart Institute, asking eminent American science writer, Gary Taubes, " Why is it that we can not agree on dietary recommendations? " " A couple major issues, first of all ... disagreements come about because the science is surprisingly complicated, the human body is incredibly complicated, all people are different, diseases are divergent and different, people and their genetic elements and physiological elements and lifestyle elements.

So when you actually get around to trying to test it, you end up with this morass of confusing and conflicting data out of which people can pick just the elements they want to support their preconceived opinions. And that sometimes make the particular researcher look very sure that he knows the answer or she knows the answer, but unfortunately that is not how you do good science. "

Lack of complexity implies unattractive conclusion which lack glamor and perceived importance
Consider the excerpt from an article in The New Yorker by eminent surgeon Dr. Atul Gawande. In this excerpt, Dr. Gawande describes how Dr. Pronovost developed simple medical checklists that have proven to save countless lives . Gawande writes, " If a new drug were as effective at saving lives as Peter Pronovost's checklist, there would be a nationwide marketing campaign urging doctors to use it. " As you will read below, his checklists have fallen on deaf ears due to their lack of perceived complexity! We have the means to make some of the most complex and dangerous work we do in surgery, emergency care, and I.C.U. medicine more effective than we ever thought possible. But the prospect pushes against the traditional culture of medicine, with its central belief that in situations of high risk and complexity what you want is a kind of expert audacity.the right stuff, again. Checklists and standard operating procedures feel like exactly the opposite, and that's what rankles many people. The still limited response to Pronovost's work may be easy to explain, but it is hard to justify. If someone found a new drug that could wipe out infections with anything remotely like the effectiveness of Pronovost's lists, there would be television ads with Robert Jarvik extolling its virtues, detail men offering free lunches to get doctors to make it part of their practice, government programs to research it, and competitors jumping in to make a newer, better version. That's what happened when manufacturers marketed central-line catheters coated with silver or other antimicrobials; they cost a third more, and reduced infections only slightly.and hospitals have spent tens of millions of dollars on them. But, with the checklist, what we have is Peter Pronovost trying to see if maybe, in the next year or two, hospitals in Rhode Island and New Jersey will give his idea a try. Pronovost remains, in a way, an odd bird in medical research. He does not have the multimillion-dollar grants that his colleagues in bench science have. He has no swarm of doctoral students and lab animals. He's focused on work that is not normally considered a significant contribution in academic medicine. As a result, few other researchers are venturing to extend his achievements. Yet his work has already saved more lives than that of any laboratory scientist in the past decade. Furthermore, often times new discoveries are based on very simple incremental improvements to existing ideas. For this reason established scientists find it very easy to ridicule them. They claim how can something so simple replace decades of their research and experience? Society agrees with them since they are conditioned into believing all science is beyond their understanding. Since it is society that ultimately funds scientist work, then without the support of society, the new ideas will never take ground and flourish.

Cause and effect not established

The media often publish health studies that do not demonstrate cause and effect. The typical study goes something like this: Researchers found that those who: ------ exercised regularly --or------- ate fruits and vegetables throughout life were less likely to have contracted xyz disease than those who did not. One can not make such type of conclusions without first proving there is a relationship between the variables. The conclusions are as absurd as saying "people who drink soda are more likely to contract xyz disease". While the statement may be true for the sample population , it does not establish there is any relationship between soda and xyz disease. The problem is that those who drink a lot of soda probably do or eat other things that are unhealthy, relative to the other group, so any effect noted may be due to the other things. Using the health study approach, one could argue that bridges made of steel are less likely to break compared to those made of wood. Why? Because historically and statistically steel bridges have a better track record than wooden bridges. However, any decent bridge engineer knows they can build a wooden bridge that is ten times stronger than a steel bridge made of thin and undersized beam sections! This is because they understand the relationship between loads, forces, stresses, and material properties. Detailed mathematics , physics and chemistry can explain what the relationships are. However, in medicine it seems the health studies often have not identified the association between exercise and heart disease or smoking and lung cancer. They seem content with simply observing that some association may exist which is just as primitive as saying "all bridges made of steel are less likely to break than wooden bridges". Any theory has at its foundation statements which are accepted as true without being proven. One cannot build a theory starting with nothing. Other sciences seem to be able to dig a lot deeper into the foundations than medicine. One reason is because medicine is perhaps the most complex of all the sciences as it merges elements of all of them. Combine that with billions of years of evolution and you end up with an organism so complex that no simple theory can explain it.

Inability to recognize variability in data

If you recall, the scientific method requires studying how interacting conditions define a situation. The problem is there is variability with each condition. For example, consider a scientist who is studying what causes trees to grow tall. One condition is sunlight. However, sunlight is not a constant. Some years can have more sunlight than others depending on the overall weather conditions. Therefore, sunlight has variability that can effect how much taller trees grow one year relative to other years. It has a tolerance, i.e +/- some amount every year. This variability of conditions leads to uncertainty in the conclusions of a scientific theory. When you add up all the variability from other interacting conditions, the final result can

have almost no meaning. So you have to always question the variability of the conditions and ask the scientist what cumulative effect they have on the uncertainty of their results. A good scientific experiment must be repeatable. The experiment has to be able to be performed many times and always produce the same result. If repeatability has not been established then you must scrutinize the variability of each condition.

Scientific community seeks maintenance of status quo by rejecting new ideas

There is a famous saying by former US President, Woodrow Wilson, " If you want to make enemies, try to change something ". Human nature does not like change, however, there are good and bad reasons for this. Anytime you have an established convention, the one who comes along and says that it can be done differently, , better, faster; that person is seen as the renegade. The scientific community, like any other community, has an unwillingness to accept new ideas often for no other reason than maintaining the status quo. There are often valid reasons for rejecting change and mantaining status quo. It is not the cost of the new technology, it is the cost of the process of changing to it. Consider something like the complex and expensive black box on an airplane. In today's digital age it would be easy and inexpensive to add a backup system to transmit flight audio and cockpit video via satellite phone and internet technology. However, once something like the "black box" is in use, it seldom changes unless there is a compelling need. To change it, you have to have meetings, studies, vendor contracts, more studies, more meetings, notices, hearings, training on replacement, etc. It is the same reason why the on-board Space Shuttle computers are a couple hundred times less powerful than the processors in an iPod: they work, and there is no compelling reason to change them. On the other hand, some scientists seek to mantain status quo out of pure laziness. Established scientists spend their lifetime mastering a few core ideas. These ideas are their livelihood so any challenge to these ideas directly impacts their livelihood and future. Their job security depends on their ability to show society the value of their work. If new ideas are discovered then society will no longer perceive any value in their obsolete ideas. Consequently, some scientists find it easier to reject those with new discoveries rather than face the humility of admitting the error in their obsolete ideas . As you can see, there are both good and bad reasons for rejecting new ideas. Often decisions to reject are based on combinations of reasons. A good scientist is one who can prioritize the sensible from the nonsensical reasons!

Focusing on details while ignoring the bigger picture ( Phd's )

While one should have great respect for the work PhD's do, nearly all of them suffer from the 'Ostrich mentality'. Their heads are stuck in the sand so are unable to sense the train coming. Such behavior is fine in the research lab, but in the real world it creates unnecessary red tape to get things done. PhD's are unable to see the big picture. Instead they focus on the tiny flaws of a system to convince people that the entire system is flawed.

It is interesting to note the difference in perspective in the clinical scientist and the engineer. Scientists are interested in 'exactness'; in the minutiae of detail. Engineers are more interested in systems and the dynamics of how things actually work. Clinicians will always argue they are more accurate while failing to understand the problems at hand in the real world. In conclusion, the world is not only made of one color. Stay open-minded and appreciate all the interacting diversity surrounding you. The best way to avoid the trap of believing bad science is to read from multiple sources to identify common elements and conclusions. When numerous people you respect and trust say the same thing, then you can be more sure you are reading mostly good science. Keep in mind the real world is not black and white at all. Between pure science and the incorrect interpretation of data, there is a huge gray area, and this is where most research is done. Unfortunately, as Thomas Edison said, " Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work ". This leads to another famous saying, " The less one understands something, the greater one's faith in its capabilities ". It is unfortunate that human nature prefers ignorance and blind faith over hard-work and skepticism. On the other hand, if you have something worthwhile, people will come. But you better be prepared to show proof. If you have an idea for a machine that flies around with no physical prototype, nobody will care, you can bet on it. Talk is cheap. Demonstrate your machine and the world will beat a path to your door, regardless of what the scientific community has to say. To end on a humorous note, the following table translates commonly used expressions found in research papers:

Published

Translation

" It has long been known...." " Of great theoretical and practical importance...." " A definite trend is evident... " Three of the examples were chosen for detailed study.." " Typical results are shown.. " It is believed that..

I didn't look up the original reference. Interesting to me. The data seem practically meaningless The others made no sense. The best results are shown. I think

" It is generally believed that.... " It is clear that much additional work will be required before a complete understanding of these phenomena is possible.. " Correct within an order of magnitude.." " Statistically oriented projection of the findings.. " Highly significant area for exploratory study.."

A couple of other guys think so too. I don't understand it. Wrong Wild guess. A totally useless topic suggested by my committee.

Source: Unknown

Section 3.3 - Dimensions

The mathematical function is a relationship that defines a situation in terms of a set of interacting conditions. Neither the situation nor the condition can exist independent of each other. The function states how a set of fixed conditions come together to define a situation. In mathematics, conditions are denoted by the term, dimension. Before one can understand the concept of the function, we need to explain what a dimension is. In science there are four fundamental dimensions used to describe any physical situation in the natural world. They are mass, length, temperature and time. While mass, length and temperature refer to static situations, time is a dynamic dimension used to describe changes that define an action. Think of time as a passage of events. For example a summer spent doing nothing but eating, sleeping and watching TV would seem to have gone by in a few days. On the other hand a summer spent traveling around the world would seem to have lasted forever. If we assume each vacation to have been 80 days, ones memory of the uneventful vacation consists only of a few events that could have been done in a day whereas the vacation around the world consisted of a plethora of events, such that relative to the boring summer, they took longer to finish. For time to pass something must change with respect to itself. The units of time, the second, is nothing more than a reference for any change. If one second refers to a pendulums swing through one arc, then any changing dimension can be measured relative to the standard of one second. For example a moving cars distance (length) from a reference point is constantly changing. The changing distance can only be measured with respect to time. It is important to understand that time is the dimension for actions, while length, mass and temperature refer to static conditions. If length, mass or temperature were changing with respect to itself then the change would have to be analyzed with respect to time. To summarize, for time to pass some action must occur and for an action to occur some dimension must be changing with respect to itself. Length, mass, temperature, and time refer to the simplest absolute dimensions the physical world can be reduced to. Other dimensions derived from these fundamental dimensions include, force (dependent on mass), stress (dependent on force), elasticity (dependent on force and stress), velocity (dependent on length and time), kinetic energy (dependent on mass and velocity), etc. Many derived dimensions are dependent on other derived dimensions such as kinetic energy is dependent on velocity which is dependent on time. But what about people, dollars, etc. Clearly these are also measurable conditions; however, they can not be easily expressed in terms of the fundamental dimensions of mass, length, time, and temperature. Since they are unique dimensions we need to come up with a consistent definition for a dimension that applies to all fundamental, derived, and unique dimensions. A dimension is simply a quantifiable condition that describes a situation. In science we always study situations where external factors are removed from the analysis. It is the objects that remain along with their properties that become our focus of study. A dimension is a measurement of a property that is relevant to the situation being analyzed. By

themselves, dimensions are meaningless. They must refer to certain conditions specific to the situation being studied. One cannot refer to just mass or length. One has to specify mass and length of what part of the system? The units of the various dimensions, meter, seconds, Celsius, kg, serves as standards to measure the dimension relative to. Understanding which dimensions to include in your scientific analysis all depends on the type of situation being studied. The more familiar you are with the fundamental and derived dimensions, the easier it will be for you to understand which dimensions are significant and how they define the situation.

Section 3.4 The Mathematical Function

The mathematical function expresses the relationship between a situation and the conditions that define it. The form of the mathematical function is thus:

This is read as, a situation is a function of certain conditions. The conditions are called dimensions. For example, consider the mathematical function for calculating the force acting on a body of mass, m. Force = Mass * Acceleration The force on a body is a situation defined by two conditions, mass and acceleration. In a closed system , the force acting on an accelerating mass, is the product of the mass and its acceleration. Thus, force is a function of two dimensions, mass and acceleration while force is the third dimension dependent on m and a of the system. Therefore force is called the dependent dimension while mass and acceleration are the independent dimensions that together define the dependent dimension. The dependent dimension, F, is placed outside the brackets, while the independent dimension are inside the brackets. Remember . the language of mathematics is as concise as possible. The function is more commonly written as:

For example, the force required to accelerate a 5 kg object at 3 meters per second per second ( acceleration is by definition the change in speed per unit time ) is 15 N, where N represents Newtons, the unit of measurement representing force:

One is free to use any value of m and a to calculate the corresponding force. For this reason, m and a are called independent dimensions, while F is the dependent dimension defined by them. Note that m and a must come from the same system, and the calculated force refers to that situation only. What if I were given the acceleration of a body and the force acting on it and wanted to calculate its mass? In other words, given F and a, what is m? This is done by solving the force function for m or:

Therefore, mass as a function of its acceleration and the force acting on it, is the force divided by the acceleration. Here mass is the dependent dimension dependent on force and acceleration. Once again, the three dimensions, mass, force, and acceleration must all refer to the same situation. It is not uncommon in engineering to encounter twelve to fifteen dimensional functions. For example, consider the five dimensional function for calculating the elongation of a cable being stretched with some tensional force.

The total elongation of the cable is dependent on four conditions. The tension acting on it, its length, the cross-sectional area, and a material property called elasticity. The point to understand is that the n'th condition is entirely dependent on the other ( n - 1 ) independent conditions. The ( n - 1 ) independent dimensions represent a set of fixed or constant conditions that together define the n'th dimension .

Questions
The distance covered by a falling object near the surface of the earth is given by:

Simplify this function using d for distance, t for time etc. The acceleration can assumed to be a constant 9.8 m/s/s. Substitute this constant into the function and write the expression for distance as a function of time. To find approximately how tall you are, drop an object from the top of your head and using a stopwatch, find the time taken for it to hit the ground. Substitute this time into the distance function just derived. The answer should be close to your height. Try this at least ten times to get a close approximation. Calculate your height in feet using the following function:

You might think your answer will be different if you had dropped a metal object , paper or a balloon. You are correct, however, it is due to air resistance which is a function of amount of surface area exposed to the direction of travel. So you should get the same answer no matter how heavy your object is as long as it is relatively immune to air resistance.

Section 3.5 - Two dimensional functions

Calculus is about analyzing functions that change. Until now it has been assumed that all the independent dimensions in an n-dimensional functions are constant and remain fixed. It is not difficult to see how changes in an independent dimension give rise to changes in the dependent dimension. For example if the mass of an object doubles, the force to push it at the same acceleration will also double. Allowing more than one dimension to changes poses a challenge that is the focus of an advanced course, multi-variable Calculus. The scope of this text will be limited to ndimensional functions in which only one dimension is allowed to change. The n-dimensional functions thus reduces to two dimensions, in which a change in the independent dimension produces a proportional change in the dependent dimension. Before explaining what is meant by a changing dimension, let us see how functions of several dimensions can be reduced to simple two dimensional functions. Consider the four dimensional function for the attractive force ( gravity ) between two bodies of different masses separated by a certain distance from each other. The force of attraction is given by Newtons Law of Gravitation:

IF we were given the masses of two bodies and the distance separating them, then the force of attraction would be a simple matter of plug and chug. Suppose we were only given the mass of one object as 1000 kg, and the distance between it and object 2 to be equal to 1,000,000 meters. The function would reduce to:

The fixed independent dimensions give rise to a constant that can be separated from the function such that:

was replaced by a constant c. The gravitation force is now only a function of the first object mass, since all other conditions are given. Thus:

The force depends on whatever the mass we choose to enter multiplied by some constant that is dependent on the situation already known. Thus we have reduced a four dimensional function to two dimensions by entering conditions that are already known. Therefore, any ndimensional function can be reduced to two dimensions, provided ( n-2 ) dimensions are already given/

Questions
1) Play with the gas savings calculator and try and derive the equations used 2) The amount of interest earned by money in a savings account is given by the function:

Or simply:

Given a deposit of $1000 and an interest rate of 6 %, write a two dimensional function of interest earned as a function of time Find the interest earned after 2, 3 and 10 years

Section 3.6 - The Graph of a Function

When the independent dimension is free to take on any value, the dependent dimension will depend on what that value is. As the independent dimension changes, the dependent dimension will change accordingly. For example the function for the total kinetic energy (energy of motion) of a moving object is expressed in terms of its mass and velocity

Using a constant mass of 4 kg, the function reduces to the following two-dimensional function.

The total energy of the body is now entirely dependent only on the square of its velocity, whatever it may be. If the velocity were 1 m/s, the energy would be 2 Joules. If it were 2 m/s, the energy would be 8 Joules. As the velocity of the body increases, its kinetic energy also increases. This makes sense, since the faster a body is moving, the more energy it has. The way to visualize the changing relationship between the independent and dependent dimension is by graphing the function on a set of perpendicular axes. The horizontal axis is labeled after the independent dimension (condition), while the vertical axis is labeled after the dependent dimension (situation). The graph of a function is a continuous line that reflect a horizontal change in the independent dimension with a vertical change in the dependent dimension. Each point on the graph represent a unique situation . The graph of the function would be:

It is, however, not obvious as to how the graph of a function is a well-defined continuous line through all the points at which the function exists. To better understand the important relationship between a function and its graph, consider a hypothetical function . In this function, f represents an imaginary situation dependent on some condition x. Therefore x, is our independent dimension, while f is our dependent dimension. For the next few chapters we will only be studying abstract fs and xs. This will allow our study of the mathematical function to be more specialized by avoiding the confusion that arises from dealing with so many, Fs, ms, as, ls, Es etc. It is difficult for the mind to keep track of so many abbreviations, much less understand where they were derived from.

With intervals of 1 the difference between each evaluated point of our independent dimension x is 1. This gives a fairly generalized idea of how the dependent dimension, f, changes. From x=0 to x=1, observe that f is zero at both these points. The conclusion is that the functions value is approximately zero from x=0 to x=1. After x=1 notice that f gets substantially larger, particularly between x=2 and x=3. This leads to the observation that as x increases f gets larger and larger. Also notice that over each sub-interval the net change in y is different. From x=0 to x=1, f goes from 0 to 0 or the net change in f is 0 From x=1 to x=2, f goes from 0 to 2 or the net change in f is 2 From x=2 to x=3, f goes from 2 to 6 or the net change in f is 6 - 2 = 4 In each case the change in x is 1 but the corresponding change in f increases as x increases. Until now our discussion of the function has been limited to just four points, x= 0,1,2, and 3. The concept to understand is that a function is defined at every point and the continuous line connecting the points corresponds to the graph of the function. In order to gain a better understanding of the function, it needs to be analyzed at more points. Though before continuing, an important symbol will be introduced, the Greek letter Delta, . is a symbol for a quantifiable change, not metaphorically speaking! It represents a definite difference or change between two values. For example if x changed from 8 to 21, instead of saying the change in x is 21-8 or 13, it is more accurate to say x is 13 or x = 13 . This symbol will be used throughout the book to reflect the amount a dimension changes by.

Returning to our example, , we observed how as x increased, f increased at a greater rate. However, between x=0 and x=1 there appeared to be some inconsistency in the function since its value was 0 at both endpoints. Let us now analyze the function at intervals of x differing by or x = .333. By reducing be analyzed at ten points instead of only four. x from 1 to .33, the function can

The change in our independent dimension x will be .333 and we will be evaluating points at this intervals. Plotting these points gives us:

The pattern from x=1 to x=3 remains the same with f increasing as x increases. However, from, x=0 to x=1 something new appears. Notice how the function seems to decrease until x = 0.5, and then increases afterward. In analyzing these different graphs (the first graph consisting of only four points) of the same function we can state an important observation. The behavior of a function as reflected by its graphs is only as accurate as the number of points plotted over the interval of interest. That should mean if x were infinitely small, then the graph of the function would be the line connecting the infinite amount of points. However, even this does not tell much. Through an infinite number of points we get a more and more accurate look at the functions graph or behavior, but between any two points x and (x + x) where x is the infinitely small distance separating the two points, there exists a further infinite amount of points such that we cannot be sure that our graph takes them into consideration? In other words how do we know if the graph is continuous over the small interval separating the points? Our graph could suddenly jump up or down as it did between x=0 and x=1. To prove that the graph of a function is continuous over an infinitely small interval consider a simpler function, nearly zero. Therefore if a point located a distance An infinitely small interval implies a change in x, is defined at any value for x, x from x. x, equal to

gives the f value of

If the distance, x between the two points x and (x + x) is allowed to go to zero, what we are doing is called taking the limit as x goes to a number that gets closer and closer to zero. Mathematically this is expressed as:

Taking this limit:

On the interval from x to x+

x the function or y-value changes negligibly such that

This proves that points on the graph that are in between two infinitely close points are all close to the values of the endpoints and do not jump up and down in a random fashion. Each successive point in this interval differs from the previous point by an amount that is related to the change in the independent dimension. The graph is uniquely defined as a function of the independent dimension such that for a small x the f is proportionally small. Intuitively it is not difficult to understand why the graph of a function is continuous over an infinitely small interval. By definition the mathematical function expresses a relationship between dimensions, such that one dimension is said to be dependent on the value of the other dimension. The graph of a function reflects this relationship by relating a horizontal change of the independent dimension with a vertical change in the dependent dimension. Now if an imaginary function were to change by an infinitely small amount then the f value would also change a similar minimal amount, because the value of f is dependent on the value of x. The graph of a function is then the continuous line drawn through an infinite set of points. For the graph to be continuous it only needs to be defined at all points where it is being studied.

The graph of can now be drawn as a continuous line that corresponds exactly to the behavior of the function, f, as the independent dimension, x, changes:

Questions
Whenever an object is thrown in the air towards some direction, the path it follows is called a trajectory and the study of its motion is the focus of projectile mechanics. The motion of a projectile is dependent on several conditions such as its initial velocity when set in motion, the angle of inclination, the force of gravity, air-resistance etc. What makes projectile motion so interesting is that gravity only restricts the vertical rise of the body, but has no effect on its horizontal motion parallel to the earths surface. This situation gives rise to the curved trajectory or path of the projectile. The goal of the following problem is to find the equation for the trajectory (graph) of a ball struck in motion by a bat at an angle of 45 degrees with an initial velocity of 50 meters per second. The height of the ball in motion is dependent on the horizontal distance covered and is given by the equation:

Substitute the known values for the given conditions (use g=9.8) to reduce the function to one of two dimensions, involving vertical height as a function of horizontal distance covered. Get a rough idea of the graph of this projectile motion by plotting points at intervals of = 1 meter. As soon as the height is negative stop plotting. Use a d=.5 m, and determine the maximum height reached and the distance from the firing point when it hits the ground. Use an angle of 60 degrees and see how the graph changes. Double the initial velocity while using the same 45 degree initial angle of inclination. d

Section 4.1 - Rate of Change

In the previous chapter we studied the mathematical relationship between an independent and dependent dimension. The relationship expressed in the form of a mathematical function defines a situation for a given set of conditions and properties. Since we allowed the independent dimension to change, it was no longer a fixed quantity but became a variable. The graph of the function reflected a horizontal change of the independent variable with a vertical change in the dependent dimension. This graph allows us to visualize how a situation changes with respect to a change in the conditions. This chapter will focus on analyzing graphs and how they represent change. To find out how much the function, , changes between two points , we simply enter in the two values for the independent variable x and then calculate the difference between the dependent variable, f, for those given conditions. Remember that a variable is nothing more than a dimension that is allowed to change or take on any value. Thus, from , the change in the independent variable , referred to as is:

The corresponding change in the dependent variable , referred to as

is:

refers to an interval over which we are analyzing the change in the dependent dimension, f.. The second point plus the change in the variable, can be written in terms of the first point

Therefore the change in the dependent variable over an interval from , which can also be written as:

to

is

For example the change in the function is:

from x=3 to x=5 , where

is 5 - 3 = 2

Questions

1. Hooke's law states that the force required to stretch a spring is directly proportional to the amount stretched or

F = Force s = distance stretched k = spring stiffness constant i.e Force required to stretch spring a unit distance Graph this function for k=1000 N/m. Calculate the change in force required to stretch the spring from 1m to 4 m. 2. The distance a free-falling object covers from an initial dropping point is given by the function:

d=distance

Given that acceleration is equal to gravity or , reduce the three dimensional function to one of two-dimensions for time as a function of distance, d. Graph the function at intervals of , from d = 0 to d = 100m , over each interval.

Tabulate the corresponding change in time,

What can you conclude about the change in time covered between d = 10m and d = 20m versus the change in time covered between d = 90 and d = 100m? o Solution:

The change from 10m to 20m is 0.59 seconds and from 90m to 100m is 0.23 seconds. So the time is much less from 90m to 100m since the object is travelling alot faster.

Section 4.2- Average Rate of Change

We have learned that a change in the independent variable is defined as the corresponding change in the dependent variable over this interval is , and

The question we now must ask ourselves is how can we measure the relative change of the dependent variable with respect to the independent variable? In other words, how do we calculate how much more or less To calculate how much more changed compared to , we simply divide the by the interval over we

changed over an interval from

change in f over the change in x for the interval. Thus we divide, which are evaluating it, which is equal to respect to x over an interval is defined as:

. Thus the relative change of f with

While this expression may seem rather simple, it does require some explanation. By dividing the change in f by the change in x what we are doing is calculating how much more f changed for a given change in x. For example in the function, , when x changed from 3 to 5, f changed from 81 to 375. Over this interval of from x=3 to x=5, the was 294. Thus the relative change in f with respect to a change in the independent variable x is:

The value of 147 tells us that f changes 147 times more than x over that interval of from x=3 to x=5 only. Thus for each unit change in x, , the corresponding change in f is 147. We can therefore define the rate of change of a function with respect to its independent variable to be:

The value, called the rate of change of the function, refers to how much more or less changes for a unit change in x. It is only valid over the interval under consideration,

Another way of understanding what rate of change of a function means is to look at the steepness of the line connecting the two endpoints of the interval under consideration.

As increases, the steepness of the line connecting the two endpoints will increase. Thus, the greater the rate of change of the function, the greater its slope or steepness over the interval under consideration. Since slope and rate of change are synonymous, then how is rate of change defined for functions whose graphs do not have constant slopes? For example, from x=9 to x=12 of , the change in f is 2997. Thus the rate of change of the function over the interval is:

This value is significantly higher than the rate of change calculated for the previous interval from x = 3 to x = 5. We can only conclude that the rate of change or slope of the graph must be increasing and is not constant over an interval the function to understand how this might be so: . Look at the graph of

Since the rate of change of a function can change, then we have to come up with a more refined definition of rate of change. We can define the average rate of change of a function over an interval , to be equal to

In the next section we will take a closer look at how we can define the exact or instantaneous rate of change of a function.

Section 4.3 - Instantaneous Rate of Change

In this section we will take a much closer look at rate of change and see how we can define the instantaneous rate of change of a function at any point or value of the independent variable. Let us begin with a study of the simple . Functions of the form , where c is a constant, express direct relationships. This is because the value of the function, f, is a constant multiple or fraction of the independent variable. Thus f is said to be directly proportional to x. The graph of the function looks like

From x = 1 to x = 3,

x = 2, and

f = 9 - 3 = 6. Thus, over this interval of

x = 2,

equals 6. The average rate at which f changed with respect to x is by definition, . For each unit change in x, the change in f is 3. This tells us that f is changing three times faster that x is changing over the interval from x = 1 to x = 3. We can now look at the interval from x = 2 to x = 4 where x equals 2.

Thus

Over this interval, the rate of change is the same constant, 3. This leads us to conclude that the rate of change of the function over any interval is a constant, 3. This can be proven by the definition of rate of change:

The rate of change of the direct function The graph of a function

is c and is constant over an interval,

x.

is therefore an increasing straight line with a constant

slope or steepness equal to c. For this reason functions of the form are also called linear functions since their graphs are straight lines with a constant rate of change. On the other hand, the graph of the function is not a straight line. Unlike a line, the rate of change of is not the same constant over any interval x. To define the rate of change for the function we will have to derive a more precise way of defining rate of change of function. To do this we will analyze the function over small intervals of x

The first point to notice is that the rate of change of the function varies with x. When x is small, f does not change that much as compared to how much it changes when x is large. We can conclude that the rate of change of f with respect to x, is not constant over any interval, x, but varies with x. To begin our analysis let us divide up the graph into intervals of happening in each of these intervals separately. = 2 and study what is

From x = 0 to x = 2,

= 2, the change in f is f(2) - f(0)= 4.

From x = 6 to x = 8,

= 2, the change in f is f(8) - f(6) = 28.

Clearly, as x increases the rate of change of the function is increasing and is not a constant as in our study of the line where the function changed at the same rate as x increased. Returning back to the graph of ; we calculated that from x = 0 to x = 2 the change in f was 4. We can then conclude that from x = 0 to x = 2 the average rate of change of the function over that particular interval is 2 or:

Remember it is called average because this rate of change is only valid from x = 0 to x = 2. Now let us consider the interval from x = 2 to x = 4 where once again the change in x, 2. The change in f of the graph is equal to: is

Thus the average rate of change of the function over this interval is equal to

This value is greater than the value we observed from x = 0 to x = 2. This implies that from x = 2 to x = 4, f(x) is increasing at a greater rate than from x = 0 to x = 2. This is despite the fact that in both cases the = 2. Therefore, the rate of change is not constant over the interval, but is increasing with x. When we say the rate of change of f(x) from x = 2 to x = 4 is 6, it is only the average value for the given interval since it assumes rate of change is constant over that interval. Let us move on to the next interval of x = 4 to x = 6. Once again the change in x or equals 2 but the corresponding change in f(x) is not the same as before.

For x equal to 4 and

= 2, the change in the function over this interval is

Note that this corresponds to the same value we would get by:

The average rate of change over this interval is therefore:

This is still larger than the rate of change for the previous interval which was 6. Remember rate of change , by definition, refers to how much the function changes with respect to a change in the independent variable. The steepness or slope of the line over the interval provides a geometric understanding for this concept. The average rate of changes calculated over each interval can be used to approximate the graph of f(x) from x = 0 to x = 8.

This roughly corresponds to the original graph, but as we can see the rate of change or slope is not constant through out the interval from x = 0 to x = 8, but increases as xincreases. In order to get more accurate answers we need to reduce our interval of =2 to a much smaller one. The idea being we need to analyze our graph over a small interval, , to see what exactly is going on at each instant the function is changing.

Here is where we begin our study of Calculus. We break down and freeze a changing situation into an infinite series of actions and analyzing what is going on in each individual actions.

Section 4.4 - The Derivative

Calculus involves analyzing instantaneous changes with reference to the entire system. We saw how using a small interval of = 2 caused great differences in the rate of change of the function over the same interval. The function did not change nearly as much from x = 0 to x = 2 as it did from x = 4 to x = 6. The rate at which the function is changing must be dependent on the value of the function. In other words the rate of change must be defined at each interval and this value must be unique to that interval. We can approximate the graph from x = 6 to x = 8 more closely by using a smaller interval of = 0.5. This will give an even more accurate description of the graph of the function over that interval. Keep in mind that the rate of change of the function varies with x, and the only way to accurately analyze this change is by breaking the graph up into smaller and smaller sub-intervals and study what is happening over these infinitely small intervals: First let us define a method for calculating the rate of change between any two points on the graph of f(x): If the change in f of a function from a point x to another point (x+ ) is given by:

The rate of change of f(x) over this interval is found by dividing by

Remember the

on the left side is the same as the

in the f(x +

) expression.

From x = 6 to x = 6.5 the rate of change is:

From x = 6.5 to x = 7 the rate of change is:

Similarly the rate of change from x = 7 to x = 7.5 and x = 7.5 to x = 8 is 14.5 and 15.5 respectively. Notice how the rate of change of the function slightly increases as x increases. This implies that there must be a way to instantaneously define the rate of change of function through one point on the graph. Before continuing, take a look at how the average rate of changes or slopes just calculated, approximate the graph from x = 6 to x = 8.

As you can see from the above graph, the smaller interval of = 0.5 gives a more accurate approximation of the graph of f(x). Our results are only averages because the rate of change of f(x) is increasing with x and is not constant over an interval To define the instantaneous rate of change, we need to define as an infinitely small distance separating two point x and (x+ ) on the graph of f(x). The rate of change calculated through these two points will then give us the exact rate of change of f(x) at that point, x. Since through any one point there exists an infinite many lines, we are in actuality giving the slope of the line through the two points x and (x+ ) where goes to zero. The two points are assumed to be infinitely close to each other such that the rate of change f(x) over that interval is constant. As we let these two points (x) and (x+ ) come closer and closer together, the slope of the line through these two points corresponds to the actual graph itself. For example with = 2, the line through x = 6 and x = 8 only roughly represented the actual graph. However, by breaking up the interval from x = 6 to x = 8 into four sub-intervals of = 1/2, we got a better approximation to the actual graph itself. The instantaneous rate of change can now be defined as the rate of change of the line through a point x and (x+ ) where is near to zero. This is called taking the limit as goes to zero. In the graph this looks like.

By letting the difference or between the two points go to zero we are able to accurately describe the behavior of the function at any large we can only approximate the functions behavior over the interval. This infinitely small allows us to define the rate of change of f(x) through any one point on the graph, where point is by definition an infinitely small interval between x and x + over which the rate of change is assumed to be constant or does not change. Thus, the instantaneous rate of change can also be thought of as the slope of the tangent to the graph at any point. The point is actually two simultaneous points on the graph, separated by an infinitely small distance. For example, the slope of the tangent to the graph at x = 6 is given by:

We can now go on to define the rate of change at any point x of the function

as:

This function is called the derivative and gives us the rate of change or tangent to graph of at any point x. It is extremely important to realize that the functions derivative is also a function of x. In other words its value changes with x to reflect a change in the rate of change of the original function. This may sound a bit confusing but I encourage you to spend a few minutes and think how it is so. You are probably asking yourself how can we assume that the derivative is constant over an infinitely small interval ? Since the functions rate of change is changing then it can only be constant over an infinitely small interval or point. It is through this point that we define the derivative by taking the limit as goes to zero. In effect we define the graph of the function through a series of connected lines with changing slopes. In the following paragraph we will mathematically prove that the derivatives value converges to the exact value as all errors go to zero as goes to zero. Since the graph of the function is continuous over an infinitely small interval then so will its derivative be defined for that interval or point. Note that and no longer refer to discrete values. When we let becomes infinitely small such that: go to zero, its value

Here df and dx represent an infinitely small difference in x, where:

Well now see how to find the derivative of any simple function, derivative is also a function , we shall call it f(x), f prime of x where,

. Since the

Our results can now be generalized for any function

where n is a positive integer.

From the Binomial expansion theorem we get: ( The theorem is just algebra and you can find a proof of it by clicking here ).

This simplifies to

We can replace all the

, with

, which are constants:

Take note of how x goes from x to nth power to the 0 power while x goes from the 0 power to the nth power in the last term. If we divide through by x we get:

As we take the limit as x goes to zero, every term after the first one goes to zero and hence cancels out; This leaves us with:

The rate of change of a function evaluated at that point x.

at any point x is given by the functions derivative

Section 5.1 - Differentiating Functions

Differentiation is the process of finding the rate of change of a function. We have proven that if f is a variable dependent on an independent variable x, such that then

where n is a positive integer. The derivative reflects the instantaneous rate of change of the function at any value x. The derivative is also a function of x whose value is dependent on x. Take a look at the left side of the function, dependent variable, f, is whose derivative is When differentiating a function of the form variable is, , the derivative of the dependent . Thus . The derivative is By definition the derivative of a

, which is the instantaneous rate of change of f with respect to , represents the independent variable

x at any condition x. The right side of the function,

, and the derivative of the independent variable is

differentiating a function results in a new function of x, where called respect to the independent variable, x.. If , then:

, read f prime of x, and it represents the derivative of a function of x with

gives the instantaneous rate of change of f(x) as a function of any value, x. Remember that the rate of change of a function other than a line is not constant. Its value changes as x changes. If f(x) were equal to a constant multiplied by a function of x such as:

The derivative of f(x) would be:

Thus the derivative of f(x) with respect to x, is the constant multiplied by the derivative of the function of x, A(x).

Section 5.2 - Differentiating Sums of Functions

which is a sum of two functions of x, Therefore, if What would be? The answer is that the derivative is the sum of the derivatives of the two functions To prove this let us return to the definition of the derivative. We can express a small change in f, , equal to . Therefore:

and taking the limit as with respect to x.

goes to zero gives us the instantaneous rate of change of f

Combing the A(x) and B(x) terms together simplifies the above expression to:

Which reduces to:

Therefore if f(x) is a sum of two functions of x, then its derivative with respect to x is the sum of the derivatives of the functions with respect to x. Thus:

Similarly if f(x) is defined in terms of a difference among some functions of x, then the sum of the difference among the derivatives of the functions.

is

Section 5.3 - Differentiating Products of Functions

Consider the following function:

If we let function A(x) and B(x) such that:

, then f(x) can be expressed as the product of the two

We can differentiate products of functions by using the definition of the derivative. A small change in f can be written as: Next, divide by to calculate the rate of change of f with respect to x:

Taking the limit as goes to zero gives us the instantaneous rate of change of f with respect to x, or the derivative of f(x).

From the definition of the derivative we know that:

Multiplying both sides by this infinitely small

Since both A(x) and B(x) are functions of x, then substituted with substitution only holds true for

can be

respectively. Note that this going to zero. We now have:

Expanding the numerator:

Canceling terms and dividing through by

reduces it to:

Thus the derivative of a function f(x) that is a product of two functions of x, is simply the product of the first function and the derivative of the second function plus the product of the second function and the derivative of the first function.

Section 5.4 - Differentiating Functions of any power N

We have proven that if then for n equal to a positive integer, i.e. 1, . As we shall prove, the derivative

2, 3, 4 etc. What if n were a fraction such that

of any function of x of the form is always where n is any real number, positive, negative, or fraction. This is no coincidence but is because of the way exponents are defined as a continuous operation for any n. Let us consider the first case of , where n is any positive integer and 1/n is a fraction.

Raising both sides to the nth power:

Differentiating x, with respect to f yields:

Taking the reciprocal of the function:

From the definition of the function, we know that

. Making this substitution:

This concludes the proof that if then , for any positive n, integer or fraction. We will prove it also holds true for n as a negative number. We can use the product rule to prove that the derivative of n, negative real numbers also. Consider the function: for all

Multiplying both sides by

yields:

The left side of the equation represents a product of two functions, f and side is a constant function,

, and the right

. Since both functions are equal to each then their

derivatives must be equal. Using the product rule to differentiate the left side with respect to x results in:

Similarly, differentiating the right side with respect to x yields:

Setting the derivatives of the left and right side equal to each other:

Remember that:

Making the required substitutions:

We can now solve for

Therefore if

, where -n is a negative integer. We have proven that if

for positive real numbers and negative integers. What remains is to prove it true for negative fractional powers as well. To do this let,

. Differentiating both sides with respect to x yields:

Substituting known values for f(x) and solving for

gives us:

Thus if for any n, positive or negative real number. This is true because of the way exponents are defined as a uniform operation for any n. The purpose of going through all the proofs for the different cases of n was to give you a better understanding of how to differentiate functions of x with respect to x.

Section 5.5 - Differentiating Functions of Functions

The last technique of differentiation is for differentiating functions of functions of x or functions of the form, . For example consider the function:

The derivative is not the inside function of x,

because we also need to take into consideration . We can replace with g(x) and get:

To find the derivative of with respect to x, we first need to find the derivative of f with respect to g. From the definition of the derivative:

Next we find the derivative of g(x), the inside function, with respect to x.

Now we multiply the two derivatives

to get df / dx :

goes to zero,

or:

Similarly,

also goes to zero as

goes to zero. Multiplying both sides by dx.

Thus as dx goes to zero;

As dx goes to zero,

becomes

. At the same time the

in the

denominator of

cancels out with the

in the numerator of

, since they are both the equivalent. To conclude

Thus the derivative of a function of a function of x with respect to x, is the derivative of the outer function with respect to the inner function, multiplied by the derivative of the inner function with respect to x. Some examples will show how this is done.

Section 6.1 - Motion, Velocity and Acceleration

We have developed the essential theory for defining and analyzing the mathematical function. The derivative of a function was defined as the instantaneous rate of change of a function at any given point or moment. Geometrically the derivative was simply the slope of the tangent to the graph at a particular point. As a student you are probably still a little confused by the concept of instantaneous rate of change. To strengthen your understanding of the derivative, let us scientifically analyze a physical phenomena and see how exactly the derivative is defined for the situation. The situation we will study is that of the dynamic motion of a body. Motion is characterized by a changing distance between a reference point and the object itself. Distance is measured in the dimension of length with units of meters, miles, or feet. We know how to measure distance but how do we measure a changing distance? Whenever a dimension changes with respect to itself it constitutes an action that defines time. Thus a changing distance has to be measured relative to a change in time. We can define velocity to be a measure of how fast an object in motion moves. Thus velocity is the rate at which the distance is changing relative to time. A simpler definition is that velocity is the distance covered per unit time. If an object moves 100 m in one second, then its velocity for that interval is . The units of velocity are meters per second or change in distance per change in unit time. Consider a for a sports car moving at a constant velocity of 100 point, we get. . If we plot graph distance covered from a reference

The graph is a linearly increasing straight line, where the distance covered increases directly with time. The steepness or rate of change of this graph is by definition the change in distance over the change in time:

Since motion is characterized by a change in position relative to time, then velocity is only defined over that definite time interval. If an object moves from a to b, the velocity of the object over this interval is this interval distance covered, to cover this distance, respect to time: divided by the time taken . Thus, velocity is the rate of change of distance covered with

For example, the car above takes one hour to go from a station 400 kilometers down the highway to another station 500 kilometers down the same highway. The velocity of the car is then Since the graph of the cars distance covered with respect to time is a straight line, it has a constant rate of change, such that = v, where v is a constant velocity. This tells us that . The graph of this velocity

the velocity over the entire journey is a constant or function is just a straight line, or is the same at any time t.

This confirms logic since throughout the journey the speedometer reads a constant 100 km./hr. Therefore, distance covered is directly related to the elapsed time, in each hour it will cover a 100 more kilometers. Now let us define acceleration. Acceleration is the rate of change of velocity with respect to time. Acceleration is to velocity as what velocity is to distance. The concept of acceleration refers to a changing velocity per unit time. The units of acceleration are

For example if the acceleration of a Ferrari is 4 km/hr per second, all this means is that each second the velocity increases or changes by 4 km/hr. If the velocity at t=3 seconds is 48 km/hr, then the velocity at t=6 seconds will be:

Lets see how this applies to a car moving with constant acceleration. Since the acceleration is constant, the graph is a horizontal line, where the acceleration of the car is at any time t is the same.

The graph of velocity as a function of time, moving with constant acceleration.

will increase directly with time for a car

Acceleration is therefore the rate of change of velocity with respect to time or . An acceleration of 4 m/s/s means that every second the velocity increases by 4 m/s. The concept of acceleration and velocity are fairly obvious to understand when dealing with constant accelerations and velocities. We now need to define a more precise way of explaining velocities as the derivative of the position or distance function with respect to time and acceleration as the derivative of the velocity function with respect to time.

Section 6.2 - Instantaneous Velocity and Acceleration

When an objects distance changes with time, its velocity is the rate at which the distance is changing with respect to time, while its acceleration is the rate at which the velocity is changing with respect to time. As our time interval goes to zero, the velocity and acceleration of an object take on instantaneous values at a certain moment. These instantaneous rate of changes represent the derivatives with respect to time. To understand how the derivative relates to a moving object, consider a Porsche that accelerates from rest at a constant rate of 15 km/hr/s from a starting point d=0. It continues at this acceleration until its velocity is 160 km/hr after which it stops accelerating and maintains its velocity.

If we freeze the moment when 4 seconds have past then its speedometer will read a velocity of exactly 60 km/hr at that instant only. However at t= 4.1 seconds the velocity will be slightly higher since the car is accelerating. This is why we use Calculus to analyze how these accelerations give rise to a changing velocity that results in a changing distance that is covered. The graph of its distance from the starting point as a function of time is:

From the graph we can see that at t = 4 seconds the car has covered 33 meters. Since the speedometer at that moment reads 60 km/hr, then we can say that at t= 4 seconds, its velocity is a constant 60 km/hr. At t = 4.1 seconds, the velocity has changed due to the car's acceleration. So the speedometer now reads 61 km/hr. We can assume that from t= 4.0 seconds to t=4.1 seconds the velocity of the car is a constant 60 km/hr. By definition velocity is the distance covered divide by the time taken to cover the distance or Thus, the distance covered by the car in this small time interval, divided by the time, .1 seconds, will give us 60 km/hr. Since the velocity of the car is increasing, due to its constant rate of acceleration, the velocity of the Porsche at any instant, t, will be whatever the speedometer reads at that moment.

If we were given the relationship for distance covered as a function of time t, then velocity of the car at any time t can be found by calculating the distance covered a time interval, : over

Since the car is accelerating, its velocity is not constant over the interval assume the velocity is constant over an infinitely small time interval,

. We can

Therefore we have to take the limit as goes to zero to find the instantaneous rate of change of distance with respect to time. The instantaneous rate of change of distance will correspond exactly to what the speedometer reads at time t.

From the definition of the derivative:

This leads to the extremely important result:

The velocity at any time t is the instantaneous rate of change of the distance function at a time t. By definition the derivative is the instantaneous rate of change of a function over an infinitely small interval. thus the derivative of the distance function, time is the velocity function for the object We now need to derive an expression for acceleration as function of time. In the same way that velocity is the rate of change of distance with respect to time, acceleration is the rate of change of velocity with respect to time. with respect to

To find the instantaneous acceleration at any time t, we need to take the limit as goes to zero. Without taking the limit, is a discrete value such that the calculated acceleration is the average acceleration is for that interval. By taking the limit as , we are assuming the acceleration is constant over that time interval.

This proves that acceleration is the derivative of the velocity function with respect to time. Since velocity is the first derivative of the distance function with respect to time, the acceleration function is the second derivative of the distance function. In other words the acceleration function is obtained by differentiating the distance function twice. Our results can be summarized as follows:

Section 7.1 - What is a Force?

An object in motion is characterized by a changing position as a function of time. The derivative of the distance function with respect to time gives us the velocity of the object as a function of time. Furthermore the derivative of the velocity function, gives us the acceleration of the object as a function of time. But what causes an object to move? To understand particle dynamics we need to first understand the concept of force. Newton's first law of motion states that an object in motion will remain in motion until acted on by a force. This observation is one of most important ones ever made as it offers a way of defining what a force is. According to this law, an object traveling in space at 100,000 km/hr will remain at that velocity forever provided no force acts on it. For example, if you were to throw a ball in space it would forever continue in the same direction along with the same velocity with which it left your hand. Here, space refers to anywhere that is free from the influence of any gravitational force, electro-magnetic force, air-resistance or any other forces. Once set in motion an object will continue with that same velocity forever. Since no force is required to keep an object in motion, then a force can be defined as that which changes the velocity of the object. Thus force is a measure of a resistance to a change in motion. Since motion is characterized by a constant velocity, then a change in motion results in a change in velocity. By definition, a change in velocity is an acceleration. This simple, yet profound conclusion tells us that forces are defined by accelerations. The force required to accelerate an object is proportional to the magnitude of the acceleration. The mass of the object is also a factor since the greater the mass, the greater its resistance to motion. Observation shows that the resistance to a change in motion is directly dependent on the amount of matter being accelerated.

We can define a Newton as the force equipped accelerate a body of unit mass, 1 kg, Therefore to accelerate a body of mass, m, the required force would be m times a.

This is read as, the force required to accelerate a body is directly related to its mass and the magnitude of the acceleration of the mass. The important concept to understand is that forces are defined as accelerations or changes in velocity. It requires no force to keep a body in motion Once in motion it will remain in motion. A force is required only to change its velocity or accelerate it. Thus force is a quantifiable measurement of a masss resistance to a change in motion. If an object had no resistance to a change in motion then there would be no such thing as force! This might seem to contradict reason. One can better understand this by considering an airplane flying in space, where space is some imaginary place that contains no matter or force fields inside it. If its four engines produce an acceleration and the mass of the

plane is kg, then the thrust or force acting on the plane is . If we assume an inexhaustible and weightless fuel source then theoretically the engines will push the plane forward with a constant force of 4 million newtons. Now since the plane is flying in an imaginary space under a constant force, it is free to accelerate forever. Remember forces are defined as accelerations and not velocities. The plane will accelerate at a constant acceleration of velocity would increases and increase at the rate of function of time would be a linearly increasing function: . This means the planes The graph of its velocity as a

The derivative of the velocity function is the acceleration function:

The fundamental concept to understand here is that a force is required only to change an objects velocity. A change in velocity is by definition an acceleration. Therefore forces are required only to accelerate an object. A constant force acting on a body will accelerate the body with a constant acceleration, which means the bodys velocity will increase and increase forever, all due to a constant force. Furthermore the greater the mass, the greater its resistance to a change in velocity. Thus, the force required to accelerate a mass is directly proportional to its mass.

Section 7.2 - Understanding Free Fall Motion

Having laid down the conceptual basis of what velocity, acceleration and forces are, we can now study the motion of free falling bodies on earth. An object falls to earth because of the gravitational force of attraction that the earth experiences for the object. What then is gravity? From Newtons law of gravitation, the force attracting two bodies is given by:

To derive this, think of a unit mass of 1 kg separated a distance from a larger mass, M. The gravitational force is the force of attraction the larger mass expresses for the unit mass and vice-versa. Observation confirms that the gravitational force is proportional to mass the larger body and decreases with the square of the distance separating them. The reason it is distance squared and not just directly related to the distance is because masses are 3dimensional. In 3-dimensional space, properties are related to the projected areas as opposed to 2-dimensional geometry that are dependent on the length only. Therefore, the gravitational force between the two masses is:

If the unit mass was replaced by a mass m, the force of attraction would be m times the amount it was with the unit mass.

G replaces c as a gravitational constant determined from experiments. The gravitational force of earth acting on a body of mass located near the surface of the earth is then:

Since most of our free falling bodies occur near the surface of the earth, we can take d, to be the radius of the earth. Substituting the known values in along with the value for G, reduces the equation to:

Since force equal ma, we have:

This important result tells us that the acceleration of a body of any mass is 9.8 meters per second per second near the surface of the earth. The gravitational force acting on a body near the surface of the earth would be its mass, m, times the constant acceleration, 9.8. For those who have a ground to hold them up this does not mean much but for a free-falling body in air its acceleration as it falls toward the earth will be a constant , regardless of its mass. A body of twice the mass will be pulled in by twice the force, but the acceleration due to the force of gravity remains the same.

This may sound a bit confusing but just remember any body will fall to the earth with a constant acceleration, independent of its mass. In terms of particle motion, mass means nothing for a falling body! While the gravitational force increases with mass, the acceleration remains the same. We can now write the acceleration function for a falling body near the earths surface as:

Since acceleration as a function of time is by definition the derivative of the velocity function with respect to time then what we have is the same as:

The derivative of the velocity function (acceleration) is 9.8. Since we know that the derivative of any function is we know what its derivative is. then we can easily find the velocity function since

The process of finding a function, given its derivative is known as anti-differentiation. In this case 9.8 can also be written as . We see that:

Therefore n equals 1. Consequently the anti-derivative of hopefully be obvious since the derivative of that velocity as a function of time is: is just

is

. This should . We now know

whose derivative with respect to time is:

The graph of the velocity function is a linearly increasing function with constant rate of change or slope

This graph of the velocity function gives us the objects velocity as any time t, assuming that air-resistance is negligible. For example at t= 10 seconds, the objects velocity is:

At t= 94 seconds its velocity is:

Or almost 30,000 km/ hr. Due to air-resistance no object reaches such high velocities. Remember the greater the height it is dropped from the more time it has to increase its velocity or accelerate before it slams into the earth. Now how do we find the distance function or the distance covered from the point of dropping the object. From the definition of velocity we know that:

Since is

, we have n=1 so its anti-derivative will be ct = 9.8t. The solution is then:

where the derivative of

The derivative of this function is the velocity function or:

We can graph the distance function . The graph gives us the vertical distance traveled from where it was dropped at any time t.

Clearly as time, t, increases, the rate at which distance is being covered is very great . For example between t= 0 s to t =5s, the object has covered totally.

Or the object has covered 112.5 meters in the first five seconds of its free-fall. However from t = 20 s to t = 25 s, the object has covered:

The object has covered more than a kilometer during this five second interval!! This should make sense because initially the bodys velocity is small and thus does not cover much distance over a time interval ;. However, after some time its velocity has increased ( look at the graph of the velocity function graph), such that over a same interval , the object covers a greater distance. Remember constant acceleration means that the velocity is increasing linearly with time and distance increases with the half square of time.

Section 7.3 - Initial Conditions of Motion

The concepts of forces, accelerations, velocities and distance are not limited to free-fall motion. Constant accelerations exist in many other physical phenomenas. Before ending we need to understand how we can modify our equations of motion to be consistent with any initial conditions that may exist. For example, a ball may be dropped with an initial velocity or a car may accelerate from a certain distance from a starting point.

If an object was moving at constant velocity,

, its velocity function would be:

From the definition of the derivative, the derivative of a constant function of the form is zero because:

Therefore the derivative of the velocity function is:

Looking back at our free-falling body, we know that its acceleration was now be written as:

. This can

The anti-derivative of this acceleration function is then:

Remember that the anti-derivative of zero is a constant. At t=0 we have the initial condition:

We call , or the velocity of the object at t= 0. It represents a situation that may exist when the initial condition is zero. When anti-differentiating we need to remember to add a constant along to reflect the initial conditions that may exist in the situation. For example if a car is traveling down the highway at 82 mph , suddenly sees a cop, and then steps on the pedal, accelerating the cart at 3 mph/s, then its velocity at any time t, were t is measured as soon as he steps on the gas is:

We know that the velocity function of a free-falling body is:

The anti-derivative of this function gives us the distance covered as a function of time:

is the objects initial position at t=0. Our result can be generalized for initial acceleration or distance as follows:

Questions
1. Consider the following three cases for a free-falling body: 1 - A ball is dropped from rest from the top of a building. 2 - A similar ball is dropped from the same spot with an initial velocity of 10 m/s Find the distance function (distance covered as a function of time) for each case. 2. Consider three cars that pass a certain starting point. Car 1 - starts from rest with a constant acceleration of 6 m/s/s Car 2 - Has an initial velocity of 50 km/hr and maintains this constant velocity with no acceleration. Car 3 - Has an initial velocity of 20 km/hr and an acceleration of 4 km/hr/ sec Car 4 - starts 5 km in from of all the other cars with no initial velocity but an acceleration of 7 km/hr/sec. Derive the distance function for each car with reference to the distance covered from the staring point. Graph the distance function for each car. 3. Last, determine at which distance each car will pass each other. You can do this by either looking at where the graphs of the paths intersect or by setting the distance functions equal to each other and solving for time.

Solutions
d(t) = 4.9t^2

d(t) = 4.9t^2 + 10t car1: d(t)=10.8t^2 car2: d(t)=50t car3: d(t)=2t^2 + 20t car4: d(t)=3.5t^2 + 5 car1 and car2 intersect at about 235km at a time of about 4.8hours car1 and car3 intersect at about 55km at a time of about 2.4hours car1 and car4 intersect at about 10km at a time of about 1hr car3 and car4 intersect at about 6km at a time of about .5 hr car2 and car3 seem to never intersect, unless the intersection is at time much greater than 6 hours

Section 8.1 - Using the First Derivative

In this chapter we will take a close look at the definition of the derivative and its relation to its anti-derivative. We will see how the graph of the anti-derivative can be accurately described by just looking at the derivative function only. From the definition of the derivative, is the derivative of a function . The derivative of a function tells us how fast f is changing relative to the independent variable, x. Thus the derivative refers specifically the rate of change of the anti-derivative function with respect to x. Rate of change is also synonymous with the slope of the tangent line to the graph at a particular point. Therefore, a function and its derivative are closely related and knowing just the derivative can tell us a great deal about the behavior of its anti-derivative. Since the derivative of a function is derived from the definition of a derivative as: , we can work with the definition to find the anti-derivative when only the derivative is known. Also recall how differentiation is based on a limiting or subtracting process and dividing; therefore working backwards would tell us that we should be adding and multiplying. We will develop on this later, however, let us first look at how we can use f(x) to obtain equilibrium points on the graph of the anti-derivative or f(x). Equilibrium points are by definition, points on the graph refer to static situations where the rate of change is zero. Thus a change in the independent variable results in no change in the dependent variable. Equilibrium sate generally occurs when a situation has reached a critical maximum value and then decreases or where a situation has reached a critical minimum value then increases. Equilibrium and critical values of a function can refer to different things depending on the phenomena being studied. Therefore we will restrict ourselves to the geometric interpretation of an equilibrium as a point on the graph where the rate of change is zero. Since the rate of change is zero, the tangent to the graph at this point will be a horizontal line. A horizontal tangent tells us that the derivatives value at the equilibrium point is zero. Such situations occur when the graph has reached a maximum or minimum value.

Horizontal tangent may also exist, but not necessarily, when the concavity of a graph changes.

A change in concavity occurs at points on the graph called inflection points. As we shall soon study, the derivatives value at an inflection does not have to be zero. Therefore we will restrict our definition of equilibrium points to reflect either maximum or minimum values on the graph. For example to find equilibrium points for the function, differentiate it to get, . The derivative, . we first need to

, tells us the instantaneous rate of change

of function, the equation,

, at any point x. Since we want to find points where the rate of change of equal to zero to find those values of x which the satisfy results in: . Doing this for

f(x) is zero, we need to set

This tells us that at both x=0 and x=2/3 there exists an equilibrium point, which is confirmed by the graph of the function,

Having found the critical points, how do we classify them as either maximums or minimums? Obviously this can be done by just looking at the graph of purpose of this chapter is to understand how to only use the derivative, , but the to

approximate the behavior of the function . To determine whether our equilibrium points are either maximum or minimums we need to evaluate points left and right of the equilibrium points to determine where the function, , is increasing or decreasing.

A minimum is defined as the bottom of a U-shaped or concave up graph. If the graph is concave up then the slope or rate of change is positive to the right of an equilibrium point and the function is increasing to the right of that point. To the left of the equilibrium point,

the slope is negative which means the function is decreasing till it reaches the equilibrium point. To better understand this, look at the following graph of a concave up portion of a graph. Notice how the function decreases till it reaches the equilibrium point then rises after passing it.

Similarly if the rate of change of were negative on the right side and positive on the left side of the equilibrium point, then we get an inverted U shaped or concave down graph. A concave down graph thus reflects a maximum value at the equilibrium point. If the slope is both positive or negative on either side of the equilibrium point then we get an inflection point that represents where the concavity changes from a U shape to an upside down U shape or vice-versa. The following graph summarizes the above conclusions.

Next section -> Section 8.2 - Using the Second Derivative

Section 8.2 - Using the Second Derivative

The first derivative allows us to define equilibrium points on the graph of a function, . By evaluating points to the left and right of the equilibrium point we can classify these points as either maximums or minimums and thus determine the concavity of the graph. Without having found the equilibrium points it is extremely difficult to determine the behavior of a function over an interval. The sign of the first derivative only tells us if a function is increasing or decreasing; however, a function can increase or decrease in two way. For example consider the graphs of the following two different functions.

In both cases the function is increasing and the first derivative is always positive; however each function increases in a different way i.e. one increases concave up and the other increases concave down. Using the first derivative only, we would have to know not only where its positive or negative but also how the first derivative is changing i.e. positive and increasing, negative and increasing etc. For the first graph of is concave down. The process of looking only at the graph of the first derivative to understand how behaves is an extremely abstract and difficult one. To quicken and simplify our work we can use the functions second derivative to conclude where the graph is concave up or down. This information along with the fact that the derivative is either positive or negative over an interval will be enough to accurately determine a functions behavior. Recall that a property of a concave up part of a graph is that its slope or rate of change is always increasing. is positive and increasing thus the graph of f(x) is increasing and is also positive but is decreasing. Thus the graph

concave up. For the second graph,

On the left side the slope is negative; however, as x increases the slope gets less and less, 5, -3, -2, till it reaches 0, from where on it increases to 1, 5, 6, etc. We can then conclude that the rate at which the slope is changing must be positive or the graph of the derivative is increasing. Since the derivatives value is constantly increasing, then the rate of change of the derivative, given by will be positive. Remember that positive rate of change implies that the function is increasing over that interval, while a negative rate of change implies the function decreases as x increases. In a concave up graph the derivative is increasing, such that the second derivative over this interval will be positive. Working in reverse we arrive at an important conclusion. If the second derivative is positive over an interval, then the first derivative is increasing, implying that the graph of the original function, is concave up. This is true because the rate of change of a concave up graph is always increasing. The reverse is true for concave down graphs. If the second derivative is negative then the first derivative is decreasing, implying that the original functions graph is concave down over the interval. The following graph summarizes the conclusions:

Though all the information concerning the behavior of f(x) can be obtained from studying its derivative, we can quicken and confirm our sketches by looking at the functions second derivative. Without having found any equilibrium points we can accurately determine the behavior of over an interval by using the signs of both the functions first and second derivative simultaneously. Four possibilities may exist for the signs of the derivatives. Both up. 2. and are positive over an interval. Therefore is increasing and concave

is positive but

is negative. Thus

is increasing and concave down

3. 4.

and

are negative, in which case is positive, thus

is decreasing and concave down. is decreasing and concave up.

is negative but

Section 8.3 - Systematic use of the Derivatives

We shall now look at a systematic and orderly way of interpreting our knowledge of a functions first and second derivative. Before continuing let us return to the concept of the inflection point. An inflection point is a point on the graph where the concavity shifts from being concave up to concave down or vice-versa. Since a negative second derivative reflects a concave down graph while a positive second derivative represents a concave up graph then inflection point occur where, is equal to zero. Note that inflection points do not , the

have to exist at equilibrium points. For example in the graph of derivatives value at the inflection point (x=0.45) is not equal to zero.

In some rare cases, the value of the derivatives can be of the same sign before and after an equilibrium point. In such cases the graph of the function, has to be determined by carefully looking at both the functions first and second derivative. To make this analysis simpler, let us go through a step by step process for predicting the behavior of only and , using

To begin drawing f(x), first find maximum and minimum values by setting f(x) equal to zero, and solving for x. Next find inflection points by setting f(x) = 0 and solving for x. Then plot two number lines for both f(x) and f(x) with plus and minus signs to indicate where they are positive and negative. First look at f(x) to understand where the graph is increasing or decreasing. Next look at f(x) to find out how the graph is increasing or decreasing, concave up or down. The number line for the example is:

Having drawn this important number line, how do we make interpret it. Remember positive rate of change implies that is increasing while the reverse is true for negative rate of change. Similarly a positive second derivative implies that the graph is concave up while negative values represent concave down. Then use equilibrium points to draw the graph through them.

Chapter 9 - The Derivative and its Approximations

In the previous section we studied how we could generally approximate the graph of f(x) by studying only its first and second derivative. Now we will develop further on the definition of the derivative to understand how we can obtain accurate approximations of f(x) using its first derivative only. Before continuing let me address a suspicion that is growing in your mind. You are probably wondering why do we care about using functions derivatives to determine the behavior of the original function? If we want to analyze how f(x) behaves we can go and graph it directly, without having to look at its derivative. To answer this, recall that Calculus was defined as the study of mathematically defined change. In science, changing situations are defined in terms of several conditions or dimensions where one or more dimensions is changing with respect to another dimensions. We need Calculus to be able to define an instantaneous rate of change for the situation. In such a case we need to work backwards from the derivative that we defined to its antiderivative. The anti-derivative of the function will give us the exact relationship between the situation and the changing dimensions. In order to understand how to define an instantaneous rate of change and then calculate the net change, the relationship between the function and its derivative must be fully grasped. Therefore this chapter will take a look at the definition of the derivative to see how it defines f(x). Let us begin with the definition of the derivative;

This gives us the exact change in over the infinitely small interval dx. Remember how the instantaneous rate of change was defined as taking the limit as a discrete value for a change in x, goes to zero.

The derivative gives us the instantaneous rate of change of a function over an infinitely small interval, . If we multiply both sides by dx, we get:

If we replace df and dx with

and

in the above equation, then we get an equation that

allows us to approximate the change in a function, . Since the derivative is only defined over an infinitely small interval, we can not use its value to give us the exact change in a function over an interval This is because the derivative of a function changes after each interval, dx and is constant over the interval Therefore the following equation only represents an approximation to the net change in as it assumes that the rate of change is constant. over a discrete interval

Look at the following graph and notice how the approximation gets less and less accurate as x increases.

from x=4 to x=6,

= 2. The change in f(x) over this interval is by definition,

Substituting the know values in:

approximate this change in

by evaluating the rate of change at x=4:

Replacing the infinitesimal values with discrete changes, both sides by , yields:

and

, and multiplying

Using the derivative we got an error of 4 or 20 %. As x get smaller, the error gets less such that this method becomes more accurate as We can state our observations in a short theorem:

As long as we know a functions value at some initial point we can calculate its value at a nearby point x, by evaluating the derivative at x = a, then multiplying it by x=(x-a) and adding the f to f(a). This only gives an approximate answer because it assumes the rate of change of the function is constant over the interval x. For example to approximate we can use for f(a). The derivative at this point is

From the calculator we get

= 9.1104 which corresponds to an error of less than .01%.

All that we have studied about the derivative until now suggests that the entire graph of a function can be drawn exactly by using the derivative only. This should be of no surprise since the derivative of a function is derived from the function itself, it only remains to undo what is done in the derivation to get the original f(x) back, given only f'(x) The accuracy of our results depends on how small our interval x is. This is because, with the exception of linear graphs, the derivative or rate of change of a function is different at each and every point on f(x).

The change in the function is only valid for the derivative evaluated at a point multiplied by an infinitely small dx The derivative is only constant over an infinitely small interval, . The only precise way of defining f(x) in terms of f'(x) is by evaluating f'(x) x over infinitely small intervals, keeping in mind that f.(x) is different over each interval. Therefore if we multiply the derivative by x we get:

The change in f is exactly equal to the derivative evaluated at a point x, multiplied by an infinitesimal dx. To get accurate approximations of f(x) we need to divide the interval into smaller sub-intervals and evaluate the rate of change at each point. For example if we were to divide the interval from x=4 to x=6 of into 3 intervals to calculate the change in the function.s value from x=4 to x=6 we would have:

Direct calculations tell us that from x=4 to x=6 , the change in f(x) is:

We now want to find this answer using the derivative only. As opposed to our last example we have divided the interval into three sub-intervals where the rate of change is different at each of the three points. In each subinterval x = 2/3 =0 .67. From x=4 to x=4.67 the approximate change in f over this interval is:

From x=4.67 to x=5.33 the approximate change in f over this interval is:

Similarly for the last interval the approximate change in f is:

Therefore the net change in f(x) over the interval from x=4 to x=6 is the sum of the three approximate change in f.s that we calculated. Before stating the results let me first explain some of the notation about to be used. The first sign is:

This tells us to evaluate the change in a function, = b. The second sign is a summation sum:

from two points endpoints, x = a to x

The summation signs tells us to add up all the individual values of x from Returning back to original example we can state our results as, the change in the x=4 to x=6 is approximately equal to the sum of the Mathematically this becomes:

. from

calculated for each interval.

The summation sign can also be written as:

The result corresponds to an error of just 6.6 %, far better than the 20% error we got when we used only one interval of x = 2. The reason we still have an error is due to the fact that the derivative is constantly changing over the discrete interval, We only calculated the derivative at three point from x=4 to x=6. The accurate way to find the precise change in the function would be to let x go to zero and then calculate the infinite sum of the along the interval from x=4 to x=6. This is true because according to the definition of the derivative, the rate of change of a function at any point is based on going to zero:

Thus the derivative is defined to be constant only over an infinitely small interval, dx. We shall study this more in depth in the next chapter. Until now we can state the following conclusion:

As n gets larger,

~= 0 and our approximations become exact.

Chapter 10 - Theory of Integration

The goal of this chapter is to undo all that has been done in the previous chapters on differentiation. We saw how the derivative can be used to approximate the anti-derivative, but how do we use it to give us the exact behavior of its anti-derivative? Differentiation involves two main operations. The first is subtraction or letting a change in x, get smaller. The second operation is division to calculate the relative change of the dependent variable, f with respect to the independent variable, x. Therefore, the focus of this chapter will be on summation and multiplication. To begin our study, let us look at the definition of the derivative of a function,

What this definition does is analyze a changing function over an infinitely small interval to calculate the rate of change of the function at that instant. By letting go to zero, the terms interval and point become synonymous such that the derivative gives is the rate of change at any point x. If we multiply both sides of the equation by dx ,where we get:

We can calculate the approximate change in the function, dx with a discrete

by replacing the infinitesimal

The answer is only an approximation because the equation assumes that the rate of change or derivative is constant over the interval . For example consider the following linear function:

or is a constant. At any point on the graph of , the rate of change is reflected by the constant steepness of the graph. Now let me pose a simple question. How much does the function, at 0 and 4 we get: , change when x goes from 0 to 4? By evaluating

The new symbol [ means to evaluate the function at the two values specified on the symbol and subtract the difference. When x changes from 0 to 4, the dependent variable, f, changes by 8. How else could we arrive at the same answer? From the definition of the derivative we know that:

Over an interval x, the change in f(x), can be approximated by evaluating for the interval. Let us see how this applies to the function we were studying. We have shown that as x changes from 0 to 4, f changed from 0 to 8. Now let us find the same answer using the above equation:

The answer obtained from the derivative is exact because the rate of change of the function is constant over the discrete interval,

But what about if the derivative is not a constant but varies with x? As we shall soon prove, the total change of a function f(x) from x = a to x = b is found by taking the infinite sum of from a to b where each over the infinitely small interval, dx. gives an infinitely small change in the function, df,

Let us look at a function whose derivative varies with x:

As x changes the rate of change of f(x) increases. We can begin by asking ourselves what is the change in f(x), when x changes from 0 to 8? In the graph this translates to:

For the function,

, when x goes from 0 to 8, f is given by the equation:

How else could we calculate the change in f? From the derivative we know that:

Since the derivative of the function changes with x, then we need to evaluate the above equation over small intervals of x to get an accurate answer. Remember the rate of change of f(x) is changing and is not constant over a discrete interval, x.

By breaking up the derivative, change in of

into 8 intervals of x = 1, we can approximate the

from x = 0 to x = 8 by using the derivative only. A small f of the over each interval,

graph is found by evaluating

The net change in f(x) is found by summing up the individual approximations of each interval.

, for

Substituting known values in:

Adding up the , we get 28. This corresponds to an error of 4 since we calculated the actual f of f(x) to be 32 as:

To approximate this

we evaluated the derivative,

over small sub-intervals

to calculate the net change in the function, change to the slope of the tangent is:

. Relating the instantaneous rate of

By evaluating the derivative over each interval x we got the approximate f of f(x) over that interval only. How could we get a more accurate result? The solution is to further divide the interval into a smaller , such that the derivative is assumed to be constant over the infinitely small interval. If we let equal 0.5, we will have sixteen intervals over which we can calculate the

You can clearly see that by further reducing the interval, the error is difference between the approximate and actual is very small. By using sixteen intervals, we reduced the error from 4 to 2. We can go on to conclude that as the interval, , goes to zero, then the net change in f(x), will correspond exactly to the infinite sum of the derivatives evaluated over each interval,

Thus the net change in a function from a to b is exactly equal to the infinite sum of its derivative evaluated over an infinitely small interval, One argument against such a conclusion is that as decreases, the error gets smaller for each individual interval however the total error remains the same. This is because as , we are adding up an infinite sum of small errors as opposed to a discrete sum of 8 or 10 for example. We have shown intuitively that this does not happen, but how can we prove it?

Returning to the definition of rate of change between two points on a graph, separated by a distance

Notice that we are not taking any limit as two points on the graph of

. The above equation holds true for any gives us:

. Multiplying both sides by

If we let

, then x is the derivative function such that:

Therefore

/2 represents the error associated with calculating

when we ignore it. The

total sum of errors from x = a to x = b, where

is:

Thus the total error for calculating the net change in

is:

Remember that

, therefore:

This important result confirms the fact that the sum of the derivatives evaluated over infinite times over infinitely small intervals of dx from x = a to x = b corresponds exactly to the net change in the anti-derivative, f(x). We have proven this for the case of , but how do we prove it for the general case for any f(x) and its derivative? More specifically we want to prove the following fundamental theorem of Calculus.

Here, the integral sign, , replaces the summation sign, , and represents the infinite sum of the derivative evaluated over an infinitely small interval, dx. To understand this let us take a more conceptual look at how the rate of change of a function is defined. The following formula give us the average rate of change of f(x), through any two points on the graph of f(x).

As we let , the two points, come closer together. The average rate of change converges to the instantaneous rate of change of the function at that point, x.

For any function, , as over an infinitely small interval,

the rate of change converges to a constant value . Since the instantaneous rate of change,

given by is constant over the interval, dx, then an infinitely small change in f(x), df, is found by multiplying the definition of the derivative by dx, where

Thus the net change in

is the infinite sum of the

from x = a to x-b is:

The first term

converges to

, while the second term,

represents

the net change in the function, from x = a to x = b, where . Finally the last term is the infinite sum of the derivative evaluate over each interval, dx. This infinite sum is represented by the integral sign,

This the fundamental theorem of Calculus. For example if f'(x)= 2x and we sum up 2xdx as delta x goes to zero over an interval, we get the CHANGE in the anti-derivative function F(x) over that same interval, where F(x) = x^2 .

Section 11.1 - Understanding Integration

In the previous chapter we took a highly theoretical look at understanding the close relationship between the integral and its derivative. The process of integration is an infinite summation of the product of a function of x, f(x) , and an infinitely small x. This infinite sum from x = a to x = b is the total change in the anti-derivative or integral of its function. The important point to understand was that a small change in a function df is given by its derivative multiplied by an infinitesimal dx. The goal of this chapter is to understand how to apply integration whenever a variable is changing or a function is undergoing some change over an interval. Consider a mathematical function of the form.

Assuming f and x represent two different conditions, then the situation F is dependent on their product. In other words f and x are two constants whose product defines the dependent dimension, F.

F is therefore, a function of two independent conditions, f and x. If we let x be a variable and f be a constant; we have:

As x changes, F also changes, since its value is only dependent on x and the constant f. Thus:

This should be rather obvious to you. Now what if the condition, f, is also a function of x? In other words, the value of f changes as x changes and is therefore, not a constant over an interval from x = a to x = b. This modifies the relationship to:

Since F is a function of f and x and f is a function of x, then F is also some function of x only, such that;

As the condition, f, is a function of x, then its value changes as x goes from a to b. Therefore can be assumed to be constant only over some infinitely small interval, dx. multiplied by the infinitely

A small change in df, is proportional to the value of small change in x, dx.

Dividing both sides by dx:

This extremely important result defines the instantaneous rate change of respect to x to be equal to . The relationship of to is the same as

with is to

i.e. a function and its derivative. The only difference is the change in notation from . Multiplying both sides by dx again:

Integrating both sides results in:

The result is still a bit abstract and may not seem to be anything new to you. The important point to understand is that F is a function of two independent conditions, f and x. If f is also a function of x, then as x changes, f also changes such that its value is not constant over an

interval from x = a to x = b. Therefore an instantaneous change in F, df, needs to be defined over an infinitely small interval over which f(x) is assumed to be constant.

Integrating

from some value x = a to x = b gives us the net change in is defined as the anti-derivative of

over the interval. Remember that

The result is the fundamental theory behind integral Calculus. Take some time to think deeply and abstractly about what is going on in this derivation. Mathematically it represents the same theory derived in the previous chapter, but conceptually it explains integration in a new way. It allows us to analyze a changing situation in terms of infinitesimal changes which we can sum up to find the net change in the system as one variable changes.

ection 11.2 - Geometric Applications

Let us consider some geometric examples of integration that are easy to visualize and understand. Following geometric applications we will move onto more physical applications from science and engineering. The first example we will study is that for finding the area of a shape whose height is changing with its length. By definition the area of a rectangle is given by the equation:

What if the height of a particular shape were changing with respect to its length, expressed by the function, ? The graph of the function and shape would look like this:

What is peculiar about the shaded area? The only apparent characteristic is that its height is changing with the length such that as the length increases the height increases. Therefore the area of the object is not a simple matter of:

In the graph, height is a function of length. The area equation for the shape now becomes:

Over an infinitely small length, dl, the area of one rectangle has constant height, and length, dl . Over an infinitely small interval, the area under the curve changes by the area of one rectangle. This can be expressed as:

The infinite sum of the inscribed rectangles over an interval of l=a to l=b corresponds exactly to the net change in the area of the shape, or the area under the curve from l=a to l=b. Thus the area of the shape from l=1 to l=3 is:

Evaluating the integral:

The total area is then 20,or looking at the graph of

It is important to understand, that the function defined by a changing height,

gives us the net change in the area

as l changes from some value a to b. Since

then in this unique case will give us the area the shape for any length, l. However keep in mind that we are calculating how much a situation changes, as its defining conditions change.

Now let us look at volumes. Let us say we take the same shape with length, l, and height, and revolve it around the x-axis. How do we find the volume of the conical cylinder generated?

All we have is a cylinder of varying or changing radius. The radius is give as a function of length by;

The equation for the volume of a cylinder is:

As the length goes from some value, a to b the radius changes with respect to the length. The equation can only hold true over an infinitely small interval, dl. The change in the volume of one infinitely small cylinder with length, dl, is

The net change in the volume of the cylinder as the length changes from 0 to 6 is found by integrating the differential,

Section 11.3 - The Systematic Approach to Integration

Integration is a step-by-step process used to analyze functions that are changing. While studying the geometric applications, it was often easier to simply look at the graph and identify a differential element that corresponds to a physical situation such as an area or volume. Such a direct approach is generally not recommended since most applications of integration are entirely independent of any geometry. Furthermore the direct approach does not reflect any logical method or orderly analysis. For these reasons we shall study a systematic approach to integration that is applicable to any changing situation. By letting x and f represent something other than mere abstractions we will need to integrate our mathematical functions in a more systematic and obvious method. As we shall see, setting up integrals is often complicated by the presence of other dimensions in the equations such that success is determined by realizing which are constants and which are variables. The best way to get a proper grasp of what is going on in the following series of examples is not to feel overwhelmed by the apparent complexity of the situation. We will first present a four step procedure for setting up an integral and evaluating it. This is called the systematic approach to integration and is derived from our understanding of integration as summation process involving one changing dimension. Step 1- Determine the form of the functional relationship between the interacting conditions. This is synonymous with writing the equation, where every dimension is assumed to be a constant:

Step 2- Identify which dimension is changing with respect to another dimension and determine the independent variable. If f were given as a function of x, then its value would change as x changed. Thus x is our independent variable.

Step 3- Write the differential dF, as a product of f(x) and an infinitely small change in the independent variable x, dx.

Step 4- Integrate both sides of the function from some value x=a to x=b to calculate the net change in the dependent dimension F.

To understand how to apply the systematic approach, Consider the problem of finding the work done by a gravitational field on a space shuttle. Jules Verne, the master of science fiction, wrote in his popular book Round the Moon about a space shuttle that was launched into orbit by literally firing it from a large cannon with a long muzzle. The ship veered of course and instead of landing on the moon, it flew towards the side of the moon, around the dark-side or back of the moon then came out the other side, directed towards earth. Luckily it did find its way back to earth safely, by landing in the sea. Enough said of that, the problem we want to consider is how much TNT would be needed to send the shuttle to the moon.

There are essentially two forces, both due to gravity, acting on the shuttle. That of the earth, which attracts the shuttle back towards the earth and that of the moon which attracts it forward. The equation for the gravitational force between two bodies is given by Newton's Law of gravitation is where G is a constant, M the mass, and d the distance between the two bodies. The derivation of this formula is not difficult but what exactly is gravity and what causes it, nobody knows. The fact is that there is an observed force determined by this equation. We can simplify this problem by finding the location of the point where the gravitational force of the earth is equal and opposite to the moons gravitational force. We do this by setting the two equation equal to each other:

Solving for d gives us 200,000 km from the center from the earth, remember gravitational forces are measured from the centers of the body. Once the shuttle reaches this point, the moons gravity will be stronger than the earths and will pull the shuttle towards it. No extra energy will be required. We can now state the problem as find the total amount of energy required to send the shuttle to this midway point. Then use this answer to determine how much TNT to use. In our systematic approach. step one is to always write the equation first. In this case we are looking for total energy and energy is given by the simple equation:

Step two is to identify which variable is changing, or which variable changes with respect to another constant. From the given equation for gravitational force between two bodies we had force given as function of distance:

There are two forces acting in opposite directions on the shuttle, that of the earth and that of the moons, where the earth's force will always be greater till the midpoint is reached.

We can now write the equation:

This tells us that as the force is changing with respect to the distance and is not constant over a distance d. In step three we determine our independent variable and then write our differential over an infinitely small interval. From the above equation it is clear that Energy is entirely dependent on distance which tells us that d is our independent variable, since everything else, including force, is dependent on it. We can now turn the d after the f(d) into an infinitely small d. When doing this we must then convert the Energy also into an infinitely small E. This tells us that the force at a particular distance, multiplied by small distance d gives the energy done by the force over that interval or:

In the fourth and final step we determine which values, the dependent variable goes from and ends at. These values become our limits of integration so we can now take the infinite sum of F(d) d over an interval to find the total energy done. In our example the distance goes from the radius of the earth, 6400 km to the midpoint, 200,000 km away:

Replacing F(d) with the value we derived it to be gives us:

Evaluating this integrals gives us:

Therefore the shuttle must have at least 100000000 Joules of energy before leaving the earth's atmosphere, by the time it reaches the mid-way point it will have almost no energy left as all was used up by the opposing gravitational pull of the earth and the moon. Given that 1 kg of TNT will give 10 Joules of energy, 10000000 kg of TNT will be needed to blast the shuttle out of the canon.

Section 11.4 - Engineering Applications

Cantilever Beam
A structural beam in Civil Engineering is designed to support load over a span. A specific type of beam is a cantilever beam which is beam with one end completely fixed so that it can not move. A picture is shown below:

If a load/force is applied at the end of the beam, the beam will bend downwards. Try this with a ruler in your hand to see how it bends. When a load is applied at the end the beam will experience the highest stress at the end where it is fixed. The stresses it experiences are proportional to how high the load is and how far the load is from the fixed end. In engineering, the term 'Bending Moment' is calculated from the product of the load multiplied by the distance . The greater the bending moment , the greater the chance it will break . Therefore: Bending Moment = Load X Distance In the example below of a single load at the end of the beam , the bending moment at the fixed end would be Load times the distance, d.

How would we find the bending moment for the case shown below?

Here a distributed load is increasing along the span of the beam with a triangular distribution. Triangular distributed loads are found commonly when a liquid is exerting pressure on a wall with the pressure increasing with the depth . An example would be the walls of your swimming pool. As the water goes deeper, they exert a linearly increasing pressure on the walls of the pool. Since our distributed load is changing with the span of the beam, we need to apply our systematic approach to integration to solve the problem. Step 1 - Determine the form of the functional relationship between the interacting conditions. This is synonymous with writing the equation, where every dimension is assumed to be a constant:

In Civil Engineering, a distributed load is expressed as a constant in units of load per unit distance. For the case where the loading is a uniform rectangular distributed load over the span as shown below:

We can write: Load = some constant * distance The constant is in units of load/distance and its value depends on the magnitude of the distributed load. Therefore the constant multiplied by distance equals the total load acting over that distance.

Step 2 - Identify which dimension is changing with respect to another dimension and determine the independent variable. In our triangular distributed loading case the constant changes linearly with distance or:

Step 3 - Write the differential dF, as a product of f(x) and an infinitely small change in the independent variable x, dx. Substituting back into our equation for bending moment:

Step 4 - Integrate both sides of the function from some value x=a to x=b to calculate the net change in the dependent dimension F. In the triangular loading case, c(d) just equals some constant, c multiplied by d. We could certainly have parabolic and even exponential distributed loading functions. But for triangular loading, we just need to replace c(d) with constant times d or:

Questions
Determine the bending moment for this parabolic type of loading:

Section 11.5 - Human Applications

Your gut feel = Integrating experience over time

From Funny exam questions Your gut feel for a situation is essentially the integral of your experiences from your birth till the present moment. The ability to trust your gut is the most fascinating trait of human intelligence. It reduces years of experience and knowledge into a single quantifiable dimension. Understanding the gut can be quite complex as it involves a knowledge of many interacting disciplines, e.g. neurology, psychology, sociology etc. I will not bog you down in complex medical terminology but rather give you a layman's perspective on, 'What does this all mean to me ?'. While we like to believe the world is black or white , the reality is people are grey. We can distinguish the infinite shades of grey by assessing what our gut feel is for a situation. Why rely on a conclusion based on one piece of information when you can rely on your gut which is based on countless pieces of information?

The gut has many limitations as well, so understanding them will help train your gut better. A lot of current authors have written extensively about the gut's critical role in decision making, as in the following excellent books: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowieck

The fundamental principle of the gut is its ability to accumulate information and store it in a distinct location in the brain. We all know it is much easier to recall something rather than remember. For example you will find it impossible to remember all your steps the previous day. However, if you watched a video of yourself moving about yesterday , you would instantly recall each situation with ease. The same goes for places you visit, details of people you interact with, knowledge you read in books etc. While it is impossible to remember the details, you will always be able to recall the details when given a little hint. So how does this translate to the gut? The brain stores information in containers in your brain. Now the fascinating part is the brain stores both the information and intensity of the information. For example let's say someone told you Hitler was a bad man. Somewhere in your brain that would get filed away in the Hitler department with a score of -1 . Now each time someone told you Hitler was a bad man, that same part of the brain will increment the counter by one . So if I asked you today what you think of Hitler, your brain will immeadiately fetch the intensity of the information on Hitler and report it to you as a gut feel. That is the remarkable aspect of the gut. While it is fairly obvious that each of us has a Hitler file somewhere, it is not obvious that our brain also stores the intensity of the information as well. Therefore, what is most amazing is this intensity can be recalled on a moment's notice when needed. Another example that demonstrates how the brain stores increments of intensity of information is through the 'nuisance accumulator'. The phrase explains how the brain collectively logs each recurring nuisance or annoyance. Humans are forced to change when the nuisance accumulator becomes full and needs to be emptied. . For example if you buy a new car, chances are the first year everything seems great. But with time, each minor annoyance starts to grow on you until it becomes easier to purchase a new car rather than live with weight of all the accumulated nuisances in your brain! Another powerful feature of the brain is chunkification. Essentially it is the ability for the brain to conglomerate details of knowledge into a single conclusion. When this happens the details are forgotten, but the conclusion remains in long-term memory. This is important because it lets your brain just store single pieces of information instead of infinite details. Also chunks of knowledge can be further chunkified into new conclusions. As we grow older we are basically taking existing knowledge and simplifying them into concise analogies that summarize all the information into a single saying. The gut is then able to probe these chunks. However, the gut is not able to probe the details that contributed to the making of these chunks since that information is forgotten. A good example that demonstrates this is to pick up an interesting article you read a few years ago. You will notice how all the details are forgotten, but the overall message of the article will seem very familiar and obvious to you. Chunkification explains why most older

generations of humans appear to be consciencously ignorant and inferior to later generations. All generations and societies do the best they can with the tools and knowledge they have available. However, the knowledge they develop becomes the building blocks for future generations to build larger chunks of conclusions from. The same feature that makes the gut feel so powerful also makes it prone to distorted perceptions on life. As your gut feel for a certain piece of information strengthens, your brain goes into a mode where it quickly rejects any information that is in opposition to your gut feel. For example, if someone started preaching to you Hitler is a good man, your brain would not start decreasing your negative gut feel for the man. Instead it would outright reject the information and not change the intensity of the existing information. This has nothing to do with psychology but is an evolutionary survival mechanism. As we grow older our brains need to be able to act quickly on gut information in order to survive. Furthermore, our brains have to learn to carry out complex tasks with ease. If you have ever watched a professional athlete, you will quickly observe how 'easy' they make it look. The reality is they have conditioned their brains and body through years of training to perform the most complex movements without a second thought. It is impossible to become proficient at a task without building a firm base of fundamental knowledge . Ask any professional and they will all agree. If our brain was always like clay as a child's brain, then our behavior would constantly be changing . Habits and methods would not develop. Consequentially it would be nearly impossible for us to progress by not being able to build upon established layers of complex systems. Cognitive dissonance refers to the brain's desire to resist information that would require the individual to act in ways that depart from their established habits. The social animal by Elliot Aronson is an excellent book that uses many interesting examples to explain the concepts of social psychology, including cognitive dissonance. This is why a child's early development essentially remains the foundations for their personality for the rest of their life. It does not matter what happens to them after maturity, their core self will hardly be unchanged. If you ask any 80 year old how they are different then when they are 17, they will respond " I am essentially the same person, except the things I believed when I was 17, I now believe with far more certainty". To summarize the following aspects of the brain and gut: The brain stores information and intensity of that information The intensity automatically increases/decreases depending on new knowledge learned until an adolescent's maturity The gut can retrieve the intensity of this information instantly when needed Chunkification lets the brain condense many bits of information into one conclusion to free up space for new information to be digested As you get older the brain autommatically rejects information that goes against the gut feel for that information in the brain

You are probably asking , 'So what does this all mean for me?'. First, since your brain so easily absorbs information like a sponge, spend time reading and learning as much as you can about the world. It does not matter if you can not remember most of what you learn. Rest assured that the information has been processed and filed away in the brain for easy

recollection when needed. In other words you are feeding your gut by being a vociferous consumer of knowledge. By understanding how your gut works you should then learn to trust your gut above any one-dimensional argument. You will gain confidence in your gut's ability to make the correct decision in complex multi-dimensional situations. Last, you need to be self-aware to not fall into the evolutionary survival trap of rejecting information that goes against your gut feel. Most humans spin in a spiral of a self fulfilling prophecy, whereby they only seek out information that strengthens what they already feel to be true. Therefore, you need to spend considerable time training your mind to be open and tolerant. Obviously you need to strike a balance between nurturing your habits and absorbing totally contrary ideas that can change your established habits.

Chapter 12 - Differentials
We have at last arrived at the final chapter of this book. The goal of this chapter is to extend the systematic approach of integration to include other types of mathematical functions involving relative change of variables. The process of identifying which dimension is changing with respect to another one is the first step in the systematic approach. The second step involves defining an instantaneous change for the function by writing what is called a differential. Differentials are of the form:

Dividing both sides by the infinitely small, dx, defines the derivative or instantaneous rate of change of with respect to x. What is important to understand is that is assumed to be constant over the interval, dx. Thus the infinite sum of these dx. s is given by integrating the function. The net change in the function, F(x) , over an interval form x = a to x = b is thus:

Let us now look at various combinations of f(x) and x, and see how we differentials are defined for each case. Consider case 1, where some situation, F is a function of two independent conditions f and x,

If f is a function of x, f(x), then its value changes as x changes. The differential is defined by converting the independent x into an infinitely small dx.

The differential is then integrated to determine how much the situation, F, changes as x changes from x = a to x = b.

Consider case 2 where F is a function of two independent conditions, f and

In this case,

represents a fixed or constant condition. We can replace A with

to get:

If f is given as a function of x, then we will first have to re-write f(x) as a function of A. We know that:

If

, then

. Once we have

, we can write our differential;

We can then integrate this function from some value of

. Keep in mind that,

This approach to writing and integrating the differential for case 2 functions is confusing and abstract. An easier and more logical approach is to integrate with respect to x only: For example if,

First let

, then

or:

Substituting this back into the function yields:

If f is a constant then from x =a to x = b, the change in F is:

The result is the same function we started with. If f were a function of x, then its value would change as x goes from a to b. The differential can be written as:

Integrating this function over an interval from x = a to x = b results in

This results in the same numerical answer as the previously defined method of writing the differential. To summarize, if ; and f is a function of x, then:

Here

, where

The third case of writing a differential is for functions of the form:

Once again,

is a constant factor that defines F. We can let

, then:

Substituting this back into case three:

Our results can be generalized as follows. If F is a function of two variables, f and x such as:

If A is some function of x, and f is also a function of x then both these values change as x changes. It is important to understand that is a constant value, dependent on x, that defines F. Therefore, the differential is defined as:

Since A is a function of x, then:

Substituting this back into the differential gives us the general expression:

We can integrate this over any interval of

to find the net change in F over the interval. and , where and

Our results can be generalized for any combination of

can represent any function of x. The differential and integral is:

Chapter 13 - Inverse Functions

In the second part of this book on Calculus, we shall be devoting our study to another type of function, the exponential function and its close relative the Sine function. Before we immerse ourselves in this complex and analytical study, we first need to understand something about inverse functions. The Inverse function is by definition a function whose output becomes the input or the dependent variable becomes an independent variable. For example given the function:

Which is Newton.s second law, or the force acting on a body of mass, m, is a function of the acceleration given to it. We are free to input any a and what we get out is the force. The inverse of this Force function, according to the definition, will give us the acceleration as a function of Force. This is done by simply solving for the independent variable, a:

Now I can let F be anything and then find the acceleration as a function of it. The inverse of a function, f(x), is commonly written as, . Now we will look at the more general case of graphing a function and its inverse in the same co-ordinate planes. Given the function , to calculate its inverse we only have to solve this for x to get

. Notice that we have not really changed the function at all, we have only solved for the independent variable. The graph of these two functions would be exactly the same. Our definition of the inverse function therefore has to be slightly modified. After finding the inverse of a function we just interchange x and y to get: What does this do to the inverse function? This essential flips the graph of f(x) about the line y=x such that for every point (x,y) there is a corresponding point (y,x) on the graph of the inverse function. Now both the functions can be graphed in the same x-y plane. Remember that if we just solve for the dependent, we are not changing the equation but merely re-writing it. For this reason its graph is the same. By flipping the x and y, we get another function of x, whose relation to f(x) is that it has been graphed as though the x-axis were the y-axis and vice-versa. It is best we look at the two graphs:

Notice how every point (x, y) has a corresponding point (y,x) on the inverse function. The graph of the inverse function is therefore exactly the same as the original function except that the x and y-axis have been switched:

Since every point (x, y) has a corresponding point (y,x) then any point y from the inverse function when inputted in the original function should yield x:

Remember the a function and its inverse are both function.s of x. The way they are related is that the inverse function represents the original function by just having its dependent and independent variable switched around. As you can see from the first graph, when the two function.s are graphed together, the inverse function contains all the point (x, y), of the first

function, plotted as (y, x) with the exception that y is given as function of x. For this reason

What is important to understand about the inverse function is that it is obtained by solving for the independent variable, then replacing it with y, to create a function that is also a function of x and can be graphed along with the original function. Now that we know how a function and its inverse function are closely related, it brings us to the question, how are the derivatives related? Logic would tell us that instead of should just find we

by taking the reciprocal of the derivative. For example if we had:

The derivative of the inverse function might be:

Or the derivative of

is 1/2x. But this is not the case, the derivative is:

Let us examine the graph of f(x) and its inverse function to see what exactly is going on.

Note that at x=2, the slopes are not reciprocals but are reciprocals only at y values of on the inverse function or through (x, f(x)) and (f-1(f(x)), x). Or the point (3,9) will have a reciprocal slope at (9,3) since at this point x and y are reversed hence the slope becomes the reciprocal or This is the important point to understand about the function and its inverse, they only behave as opposites at point (a,b) and (b,a). This means that at point a something different is going on. The question is then how can we find the derivative of the inverse function with respect to the x-axis? Looking again at:

By replacing x with y and y with x in this last expression we get:

What we have just done is calculated the derivative of the inverse function only by looking at the original function and its derivative. The reason the derivative was not just the reciprocal of y=2x was because we forgot to do the following two steps: 1) Replace x with its equivalent expression in terms of y.

The slope in the following graph is

at x=2 the slope is (2)(2)=4

By replacing x with we can find the derivative with respect to the same x-axis but instead with a y-value.

At y=4 the slope is instead.

which is the answer we got using x=2

Since the inverse function is graphed in the same xy plane as

, we can find the

derivative of the inverse function with respect to the axis by taking the reciprocal of the expression and then replacing every y with x and vice-versa.

This last expression is the derivative for the function.s inverse with respect to the x-axis. To summarize we can state the following theorem: To find the derivative of the inverse function, 1) Remember, an inverse function is related to the main function in that if you reflect it over the line y=x, you will land on the main function. 2) First find the derivative of f(x) 3) Replace any x in the derivative with its y-equivalent, so as to be able to find the derivative with any given y-value.

4) Take the reciprocal of the derivative to get respect to the y-axis.

so as to be able to find the derivative with

5) Since the inverse function is graphed with respect to x, replace every y with x and x with y to find the derivative of the inverse function. To summarize further:

For example given

find the derivative of its inverse,

Chapter 14 - Introduction to Exponents

This chapter on exponents marks the beginning of the second half of our study of Calculus. In the first half we introduced the concepts of numbers, functions and graphs, then went on to analyze them in more depth using the derivative. Having understood what the derivative was, the remainder of the first half was devoted to integration, or the reverse of differentiation. It required some abstract thinking since what we were doing was analyzing that which we could net directly see. The first half we basically focused entirely on simple rules of arithmetic. Differentiation was presented as a subtracting and dividing process while Integration was shown to be a multiplicative and additive operation. In other words our study of Calculus was limited to multiplication and addition. From the first chapter you might recall how multiplication was defined as repetitive addition where x multiplied by y was just x plus itself y times. With this idea we can say that all multiplication reduces to addition and this means our study of Calculus was based entirely on addition. Now we will study Calculus based on multiplication through the study of exponential and Logarithmic function. Before continuing we need to establish a few properties of exponents. The rules that govern exponents are very similar to addition. The definition of an exponent or a power is:

Where a is called the base, and x is the exponent or power. Therefore a raised to the x power is defined to be:

For example:

Compare this with the definition of multiplication where:

Since multiplication can be called repetitive addition then exponent or raising something to a power can be though of as repetitive multiplication. This is really all that we mean by exponents. They can be reduced to multiplication and multiplication can be further reduced to exponents. Now let us take a look at some properties of exponents. The first being the rule for multiplying two exponents of the same base.

Notice how multiplication of exponents has been reduced to addition of exponents. For example:

It is really this simple. The second important property of exponents states that a to the x power raised to the y power is just a to the product of x and y power or:

All this is saying is that an exponent raised to another exponent can be reduced to multiplying the two exponents out or:

Take note of how this rule reduces exponents of exponents to just multiplication of the two exponents whereas rule one reduces multiplication of exponents to addition of exponents, ( assuming a common base a). These two important properties of exponents are the fundamental ways of defining what exponents are and how they relate to repetitive multiplication, where multiplication is just repetitive addition. It now remains for us to define what we mean by raising an exponent to a fractional power. This is actually much simpler than it sounds. Since we defined whole number exponents to denote repetitive multiplication, we would want fractional powers to represent repetitive division. Fractional exponents therefore are called roots and tell us into how many equal multiples a number has been divided into ,such that the product of these roots gives us the original number a back.

This definition of fractional exponents remains consistent with the first and second rule of adding and multiplying exponents. Last but not least we need to define what we mean by raising exponents to negative numbers. This is done by remembering that positive exponents refer to multiplication, therefore negative exponents would refer to division. In order for our definition to remain in accordance with the two rules of exponents we need to define it this way:

This is rather a long way of deriving this as you can clearly see from the following example how negative exponents are defined.

Increasing the power means multiplying it more times by itself, while decreasing the power means dividing it more times by itself. Therefore multiplication and division reduce to addition and subtraction in exponents. Since a raised to the first power is a multiplied by itself once, or just a, by definition then what is a raised to the zero power. Once again this definition must remain consistent with the rules of exponents. Instead of raising a to zero power, we can raise it to 1/ or one over infinity which is close to zero. Therefore a raised to the negative 1 over infinity is:

From the definition of fractional exponents, we are asking ourselves what number multiplied by itself an infinite amount of times gives a? If this number were slightly less than 1, then as you multiply infinite times, you get a smaller and smaller number or zero. If this number were slightly greater than 1 then you would get a larger and larger number each time you multiply it by itself, or eventually infinity. Therefore only the number one satisfies both limits as you approach it from either 1/ or -1/. Hence:

You might think that how can: exactly the same.

. This is because zero and 1/ are not

This definition of zero exponent power tells us an important property of exponential.s. In multiplication you are adding, where adding nothing is zero. In exponents you are multiplying, where multiplying nothing is one, not zero. Therefore all exponents are expressed as repetitive multiplication of numbers greater than or equal to one. We can say that the base of exponents is therefore 1.

Chapter 15 - Logarithmic and Exponential Functions

The previous chapter was devoted to defining a new type of function, the exponential function. The base of this function was multiplication. We can describe the exponential function as simply:

This is defined for all values of x, as defined in the previous chapter. Let us now look at the inverse of this function or what we shall refer to as the Logarithmic of this function. Remember the inverse function is found by interchanging y and x so we get:

By solving for y to get the inverse function we get:

This tells us that we must do something to an inputted x value to find y. Remember x refers to the number we get by raising a to some power y. Therefore if we were given x then in order to get y, we must ask ourselves to what power has, a, been raised to so as to get y? This question can be replaced with the word . Log., where the Log, base a, of a number is the power a or the base has been raised to so as to get x. Stated mathematically:

The question marks refers to our output or y values. Remember we are inputting values of x, making x our independent variable, then calculating what power the base must be raised to get x. This answer is our dependent variable as its value depends on what number x we have inputted. Hence:

This is really not that difficult, just remember that the Logarithmic function is the inverse or

opposite of the exponential function. Now let us move on to examine some unique properties of the Logarithm.

Or the Log of a product is simply the sum of the Log.s of each number. To understand this, recall the property of exponential multiplication, where the product of two exponential numbers of the same base is simply the sum of the exponents with the same base.

we begin by assuming that c and d can be expressed as some exponent of the base. Remember that let: . Therefore we can

This means that Then:

by substituting c and d for

and

respectively.

The second important property of Logarithms is that:

The proof is based on property 1, excepts that we must keep in mind that Thus is expressed as difference of two Logarithms and not a sum, since we are dividing not multiplying. The final and most important property of Logarithms is that:

The proof of this extremely useful property requires us to first re-write

as

where . When we raise x to the n'th power we must raise the left side of the equation also to the n'th power:

This is based on the third property of exponential functions that tells us that an exponents raised to an exponent can be reduced to the product of the exponents. We can now write as which is the same as

Having proved the unique propertied of Logarithms, all of which related to the property of exponents, we shall now calculate the derivative of the logarithmic function. We begin with the function:

From the definition of the derivative:

Using this we get:

From the second property of Logarithms the numerator: Can be simplified to:

Substituting this back into the definition of the derivative we get:

Recall the third property of Logarithms;

Consequently:

Clearly as goes to zero, / x also goes to zero regardless of what value x is. Outside the brackets, 1/ tends to infinity as goes to zero. This means we can rewrite:

x/ is therefore the reciprocal of / x and it also tends to infinity as approaches zero, regardless of what value x takes on. Thus from the third property of Logarithms:

We shall now make a small change in variables to help evaluate the limit inside the Log brackets. We replace / x with 1/n and x / with n. The derivative can now be rewritten as:

which now becomes

Let us now evaluate the limit an n -> infinity of

. By the Binomial Theorem we get:

The sum of the terms after the first two will always be less than the sum of the

corresponding infinite series whose sum can be proven to be one. Just think that it will take an infinite number of steps to cover one meter if in each step you can only cover half the remaining distance.

This is true because: . The same reasoning can be applied to the remaining n terms; the numerator will always be less than one and the denominator will be greater than the denominator of the corresponding n.th term in the series. For example:

Since the sum of this series is 1, we can make an important conclusion,

As we shall see later, this limit tends to the number e, where e=2.71828...Returning back to our derivative we get.

Therefore:

If the base a was set equal to e, we would have:

For this reason we denote the Logarithm of base, e, to be called the Natural Logarithm or ln x , whose derivative is simply 1/x .The derivative of logarithms of other bases is , where the Log e is some other constant other than 1. Having shown that the derivative of ln x is 1/x we can go on to prove the derivative of the inverse of the logarithm function, the exponential function, using our algorithm presented in the chapter on inverse functions. Before doing it that way let us use the definition of the derivative to find the exponential function.s derivative. To do this we follow similar steps to those we used to calculate the derivative of the Logarithm of base a, function. Instead of

Recall the first property of exponential multiplication, where

Therefore As

and

gets closer and closer to zero,

We will now make a small change in variable to simplify the limit calculation. We replace with . We now have:

Let us now evaluate the limit in the brackets.

The value within the parenthesis will tend to zero or . We now want to solve derivative will be Solving the part in parenthesis gives us:

since for example for and the

Raising both sides to the n.th power, we get:

Remember we are taking the limit as n goes to infinity so we have:

This tell us that if the base a were equal to e the derivative of

Becomes:

The reason we get 1 is because:

Setting a equal to e gives us:

Remember this only happens when a=e. The derivative of is or the function itself. This tells us that the rate of change of the function at a point x is proportional to the function.s value at that point. This will be discussed further in the next chapter. Now let us examine the graphs of the Natural Logarithm function, , and the

exponential function of base e, . Remember these two functions are inverses of each other, since only the dependent and independent variable have switched places, or x and y.

Since we know that the derivative of y = ln x is simply 1/x, we can then find the derivative of the inverse function, the exponential function, with respect to the x-axis, using our algorithm presented in the chapter on inverse functions. It goes as follows:

We have just found proven that the derivative of is the function itself or y. = y. This was done by just examining the function.s inverse, the natural logarithm and its derivative with respect to x. This shows the close relationship the Exponential Function has with the Logarithmic function, the two being inverses of one another. This concludes our study of these two function.s and their derivatives. We will explain later how e is actually a number defined as a limit. For now just consider how in calculating the derivative of the multiplicative function, the exponential function, involved an analysis of each term in the series of the binomial expansion, whereas in the study of repetitive addition functions, polynomials, all the terms except the second, went to zero.

Chapter 16 - Applications of the Exponential Function

" The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." Albert Einstein In this chapter we will take a look at just a few of the many interesting situations where the exponential function arises, i.e population growth and compound interest. The emphasis on the exponential function was that its base was multiplication, or it can be thought of as a repetitive multiplication function. We proved its derivative, but now we need to explain how to integrate it. You may recall from Part I, that in integrating a function over any interval, we just added a constant to our integral. The derivative of the function with or without an added constant was still the same. The important point to realize here is that if we were calculating the integral over a definite interval from a to b, then the constants are useless and take no part in the calculation. For example if the integral of f(x) is F(x) + C, then the integral from a to b is:

This tells us that the change in a function over an interval is independent of the constants that are added on. The constant are there to define the initial condition, such that for any, x, F(x) is simply plus or minus a constant. This will become clearer later on as we look at

examples. If constants are added on to polynomial functions, then they are multiplied on to exponential functions. What do we mean by this? When we are integrating the Logarithmic and exponential functions we can multiply constants that have no effect on the derivative, they are there only to satisfy initial condition. For example, the integral of 1/x is:

What is then the derivative of ln of a constant times x?

Note that we have not attached any limits to the integral, this is called the indefinite integral as it simply refers to any x over any interval. Suppose we were to integrate over a definite interval from a to b, then just as the constants in the polynomial functions canceled out, so will the constant in ln cx:

Therefore the constant plays no role in the change of function over an interval and is only there to define the initial condition.. Now let us move on to some applications, first a look at populations. Population growth is generally expressed as a percentage of the population per year. Such that a 3% growth rate means a population of 1000 people will see 30 new babies for the first year, 3% of 1030 for the next year and so on. No matter how large the population, there will always be 3% of the population wanting to have babies every year. We can express this relationship as follows:

This can be written more generally as:

The only function whose rate of change or derivative is proportional to itself is the exponential function or:

A more accurate way of solving this, is separating the variables and integrating the change in population from some initial to some final population, and integrating time from 0 to t.

We can now integrate both sides over the limits just defined:

From the definition of the Logarithm we get:

Note how the initial condition of a given population at t=0 is multiplied on to the exponential function and not added on, such that at t=0 we have:

Consider the population of Pakistan, 120,000,000 people. If the birth rate is 3% per year, then what will be the population in 10 years? We do not take the death rate into consideration is because the birth rate, takes into account both the birth and death rate such that it reflects the net or true growth in

population per year. Our equation becomes:

The population will therefore be over 148,484,468 people which represents an increase of 38,484,468 people in ten years. Note that this answer was not found by taking 3% of 110 million and multiplying by ten. This fails to work since it assumes that every year the population is 110 million, but this is clearly not the case, since the population is constantly growing and growing and 3% of the population is a larger and larger number. That is why 38,484,468 > 33,000,000. If you are a skeptical person, like me, you will probably doubt how accurate our answer is. One argument might be that since the population is increasing every second and not only once a year, then 38,484,468 is not the exact increase as it is based on a yearly increase in population growth. In fact our answer does indeed take into consideration that babies are born every second and not only one a year. To understand this, go back to our proof of the derivative of the exponential function:

We are taking the limit as time goes to zero and similarly the integral:

Is also based on t going to zero. Furthermore the growth rate is a constant value and will always be 3%, in this case, regardless of how much time has passed in years, months or seconds. The fact remains that there will always be 3% of the population desiring to have babies. is based on time going to zero, how can we be sure that when we solve for t =10, it is referring to ten years and not ten months or ten seconds later. The way we are sure that 10 refers to years and not anything else, is by remembering that 3% growth rate is a per year figure. So.

means that even though the growth rate is always 3%, it doesn't take into consideration that it takes around a year for a baby to be born, so that 3% per year means that the there will be .03P new babies per year, not per month. Another fault with our equation is that it assumes that the 3 percent of the entire population at any given time t, has an equal desire to have a baby in one year. This is obviously untrue. Therefore our population equation is clearly flawed but the general idea is correct. The continent of South Asia has an average growth rate of 2.5% per year. If the current population is 1.1 billion, in how many years will the population double or be 2.2 billion. Our equation:

Taking the natural log of both sides gives us:

In 27 years the Population of South Asia will double. In this next example we will take a closer look at the exponential function's role as a solution to the equation: . Hopefully all doubts will be cleared up now.

When one deposits money in a savings account, it is generally for letting the money earn interest. Interest is just money paid for the use of money. Interest rates are quoted as per year or 6% per year or 9% per annum( per year). So a 6% rate would mean that $1000 would earn once a year. . This is called simple interest since the money only earn interest

Compound interest on the other hand, is where the interest earns interest. So $10,000 put into an account that earns 6% interest, compounded quarterly or every three months, undergoes a series of calculation. In each quarter we add the interest earned from the previous quarter to the amount of money in the bank to get our new balance for the next quarter. Therefore the interest earned in the previous quarters adds to the interest earned in the following quarters Quarter 1:

Quarter 2:

Quarter 3:

End of 1 Year:

The difference is not much since the amount of interest earning interest is small. The balance in the bank after one period for money compounded n times a year can be found by:

This last formula gives us the new balance after the first time it was compounded. To find the amount for the second compounding period we multiply by:

Factoring out a

gives us:

The money in the bank after the 3.rd and 4.th it has been compounded is given by . By observing the pattern we can conclude that the balance at the end of the year, when the money has been compounded n times is:

If $10,000 were put into a savings account that gives an interest rate of 6%. compounded quarterly,

If this new balance were put into the same account for another year we would have:

The formula then for calculating the new balance, or how much money is in the bank after t years compounded n times is:

The exponent (nt) refers to how many times the money has been compounded. If in one

year it is compounded n times, then in t years it is compounded nt times over the t years. If the same money were compounded infinite times this would mean that the interest is constantly earning interest. The interest earned over a small change in time is added to the previous balance, creating a new balance on which the interest earned over the next small time interval is based on. Therefore the rate at which the money is changing is proportional to the amount of money in the bank times the interest rate.

Let us examine this familiar looking limit in the brackets, . It looks similar to the definition for e, except for the r, interest rate which is constant throughout the time interval. To evaluate this recall that the limit as x goes to zero of x/x and x/x were infinity and zero, respectively. This is true regardless of the value of x, since its value was fixed and did not change. Therefore by raising to the 1/r power gives us:

Now as n tends to infinity, r/n goes to zero, and n/r goes to infinity. This gives us the familiar answer, e.

Raising both sides to the, r, power we get:

This gives us the limit of what we were initially looking for:

Or more generally for any x,

Returning back to our initial problem of calculating the Principal in an account that compounds interest infinite times per year:

This important answer could also have been arrived at by realizing that money that is put into an account that compounds interest infinitely is changing at a rate proportional to the amount of money in the bank, times the interest rate. For example if at t=4, the amount of money in the bank was $10000, and the interest rate was 6%, then at that instant the money would be changing at the rate of $600 a year. As the money changes then so does the amount of money in the bank, such that our equation becomes:

We can call Money, Principal or just P, and separate variables:

We can integrate this equation to solve for P in terms of r and t. We integrate time from 0 to t, and Principal, from P at t=0, to some final value of P.

This yields the solution:

This last answer is the same answer we derived using the definition of compound interest, which gives us the amount of money in a bank after t years and infinite compounding with an initial deposit of P0. Differentiating this equation with respect to time:

Despite how difficult it may seem to explain this change the fact remains that the money is changing at a rate proportional to the amount of money itself, such that as the money begins to change over a small change in time, the amount of money in the bank changes by a small amount creating a new balance that is only accurate for the next t . It is really this simple. In this example we will compare simple interest to compound interest. Consider a poor college student who decides to put his summer earnings of $2000 into a savings account for 3 years. His choices are to City Bank that offers a simply interest rate of 3.2% per year or Carolina Bank that offer an interest rate of 2.9% compounded continuously. Where should he put his money? Also note that City Bank offers a free T-shirt for opening a savings account. Lets first consider City Bank. The rate at which his money will be changing is the rate of interest time the amount of money in the bank or (3.2/100)(2000) = $64/year. Remember this is the definition of simple interest, the rate at which your money is changing is only dependent on how much Money you initially open the savings account with.

With Carolina Bank, the interest rate is 2.9% compounded continuously. We can just go directly to our equation for continuous compounding:

This tells us that the interest earning interest only contributed to an extra $9.52, barely

more than the cost of the shirt. This is because the interest earned was small, and the interest it earns is even smaller. Now if we were to put the money on for 30 years, then the interest earned will have enough time to earn some substantial interest.

In simple interest the amount of money in the bank remains constant, while in compound interest the balance is increasing constantly. Just as exponential functions increase with rates proportional to the function itself, they can also decrease. This happens when:

Whose solution is simply:

The evolution of living beings is also based on the priniciples of exponential growth. Most people can not understand how small changes to populations per generation can lead to large differences in species over long periods of time. This works exactly the same way money grows to a large amount when interest is compounding. Sean B. Carroll writes in his book, The Making of the Fittest: In the case of evolution, the amount of the initial investment is analagous to the number of individuals in a population with a trait. And the interest rate is analogous to the small selected advantage that trait confers on those individuals that carry it. While the time required for one trait to become prevalant in a population is greater than one lifetime, it is often no more than a few hundred generations. This is a blink of an eye in geologic time. This tells us that small differences among individuals when compounded by natural selection over time really do add up to the large differences we see among species. This concludes our study of the exponential and logarithmic function. It is important to understand the differences and similarities to the polynomial function. The base of the exponential function is multiplication and exponential growth can be thought of as repetitive multiplication. In this chapter we saw how this applies to multiplying populations and multiplying money.

Questions
1. The power of compound interest lets you amass large wealth as long as you start investing early. In the early years your investment will grow linearly , but after some years you will see the investment grow very fast. Make a bar graph in excel for investing $10,000 once a year for 30 years. If you do not have excel, you can download either Open Office or Gnumeric , both are free spreadsheet softwares.

Assume the interest is compounded continuously at a rate of 6%. Write a formula to calculate the value of the $10,000 at the end of the first year. Then in the next row add $10,000 to the new principal and use the same formula to find the value of the new principal afer that year ends. The graph you make should illustrate the power of investing early in life and reaping large rewards towards the end . 2. Exponential decay occurs whenever the rate at which the function is decreasing is proportional to the function itself. Consider the element Uranium that undergoes radioactive decay at the rate of 12% of the material per year. This decay rate, 12%, is independent of the amount of material present. Find the time taken for half of Uranium to disappear, or the half life.

This half life is true for any amount of material. A 1000 kg sample and a 1 kg sample will both take the same time to reduce to half their original mass.

CHAPTER 17 - The Sine and Cosine Function

I see crowds of People, walking around in a Ring. T.S. Eliot Wasteland A current under sea Picked his bones in Whisper. As he rose and fell He passed the stages of his age and youth Entering the whirlpool. Wasteland Your memory of trigonometry is probably filled with meaningless identities and strange acronyms to help remember what all the Trig. Functions refer to. Some of you may recall that infamous Indian Tribal Chief, SohCahToa, whose name helped you pass your equally notorious quizzes and tests. ( Sine opposite over hypotenuse, Cosine adjacent over hypotenuse, Tangent, opposite over adjacent; hence SohCahToa) Others may remember being presented with a circle, called the Unit Circle for reasons soon to be seen. In this circle any point on it had the co-ordinates ( Cos , Sin ) where x= Cos and y= Sin . Often times the circle added more confusion to your understanding of Sines and Cosines. At such a point your mind must have justifiably asked, . What do Indian Tribal Chiefs and Circles have to do with the study of the Sine function, a function whose application arises everywhere from the ten second swaying period of the Worlds Trade Center towers to the mechanisms that translate the back and forth motions of the watch spring into time. In

almost any study of oscillating or vibrating systems, the Sine function arises, for reasons that are not attributed to mere coincidence and chance. In all simplicity the Sine function is the complex mathematical function to describe circles. From the lines from T.S Eliot's Wasteland and from your own experience circles represent a never ending, repetitive cycle. Motion along a circle passes through the same point infinite times. It is this complex nature of the circle, that causes its study to be so intense and intricate. Before we can talk about circle, we need to first understand triangles. Let us begin our study of the Sine function with a look at right triangles. In all simplicity the Sine of an angle ( The issue of what is an angle and how to describe it will be dealt with later) is the ratio of the opposite side to the hypotenuse:

Or more directly:

From the calculator or a Trig. Table we can find the angle approximately. The Cosine functions similar to the Sine function except that it measures the adjacent side, not the opposite side, ratio to the hypotenuse. For example:

In right triangle ABC,

The last trig. Function, the Tangent, is the ratio of the opposite side to the adjacent side.

Thus in right-triangle ABC, The remaining Trigonometric functions; Secant, Cosecant, and Cotangent are simply the reciprocal values of the Cosine, Sine, and Tangent respectively.

It is not important to remember the reciprocal functions as they unnecessarily add confusion to one.s understanding of Sine.s and Cosine.s and Tangent.s. It is enough to remember that they are just 1 over the value for the Sine, Cosine or Tangent. To further make life easier one can express Tan (as just Sin (over Cos ( This is easy to see as:

This reduces the study of Trigonometry to only two functions, the Sin (and Cos ( Any other Trig function can be expressed as a variation of these two. To state them again they are:

At this stage your mind should only be focused on knowing what the Sine and Cosine of an angle mean. Sine is opposite over hypotenuse, and Cosine is adjacent over hypotenuse. Now there are two very important concepts to understand about the Sine and Cosine of a given angle. First, Sines and Cosines apply only to right triangles, when there is one right angle of 90 degrees, whose opposite side is called the hypotenuse. If one were asked to find the Sine of the following angle.

Then the answer is not 2.8/5.5 or 2.8/7 as triangle ABC is clearly not a right triangle and

side AC is not a hypotenuse. To find Sin (we would have to somehow construct a right triangle, probably the easiest way by drawing an altitude from C perpendicular to AB, like this:

The values for h and x can be found by writing two simultaneous equations based on

Pythagoreans's theorem:

The second important point to understand about Sines and Cosines of angles is that their values are independent of the dimensions of the triangle. What this means is that the Sine of a 62 degree angle will always be .883, regardless of the size of triangle it is measured in.

Size is a meaningless quantity unless it is used with reference to something else. If you examine a right triangle individually then you will find it impossible to describe its size. It is only when you look at it with respect or relative to another triangle that you can correctly say the following concerning these two right triangle.

Triangle A is large. (Relative to B only) Now if we were to compare Triangle A with let us say another Triangle C we would say:

Triangle A is small. ( relative to C) Finally we can compare Triangle A with two other triangles and say the following:

Triangle A is of average size. ( relative to b and C). This brings us to a logical question; how can Triangle A be small, large, and even average? Since Triangle A is unique and does not change then it is our adjectives which are at fault in describing the attribute of size of the triangle. We are now in a position to state an important philosophical idea: Adjectives are only as accurate as the number of objects an object is described relative to. In other words to describe something one must have at least a standard to compare it to. As we mentioned before descriptions are only as accurate as the number of objects it is compared relative to. For this reason calling Triangle A average was more accurate than calling it large or small. This is because, in describing Triangle A as average we were comparing it relative to two triangles and not just one as in the other two cases. The importance of understanding relativity cannot be understated in describing any situation, phenomena, object or attribute. To name but a few examples from the natural world, weight, velocity, size, distance and objects and light. Relativity can also be taken a step further to ask what in this world is absolute, or whose existence is independent of anything else. In the SI units of measurement, every quantity except length, time and mass are considered derived. For example volume, density , force etc.. can all be expressed in terms of the fundamental quantities of length, time and mass. But are length, mass and time, independent of each other? Returning back to our discussion of the Sine function we saw that the Sine of an angle was simply the opposite side over the hypotenuse. We also now see how all other trigonometric functions can be expressed as variations of the Sine function alone, with the help of the

Pythagorean theorem. Therefore before continuing let us go through a simple proof of the Pythagorean theorem, a theorem which as you already know, arises almost everywhere in Mathematics. We begin this proof by drawing an altitude in a right triangle ABC,

The altitude with height, h, divides the triangle into two other right triangles, both similar to triangle ABC.

Viewing these three triangles together:

As these triangles are all similar we can state two identities:

Adding a2 with b2 gives us:

Taking the theorem a step further we can prove the following important identity relating sine with cosine. In any right triangle ABC

Cos (q) would then be equal to a/c; however by the Pythagorean theorem; , we can then re-write a as Hence:

Squaring both sides gives us:

Remember that

This identity holds true for any right triangle. For remembrance sake it can also be written as; This useful identity tells us that even the Cosine of an angle can be expressed in terms of the Sine of the angle, therefore the Sine function is the fundamental Trigonometric function, as all other functions can be derived from it, including the Cosine function. Until now we have restricted our study to triangles, where the Sine of an angle is the ratio of the opposite side to the hypotenuse. We can therefore define the Sine function to be the function that outputs a unique ratio for an inputted angle. But we must ask ourselves what is an angle, and how can we express the sine of an angle mathematically without having to look up Trig. Tables? The solution is left for the next chapter that will go into detail to define the Sine function mathematically by using a circle and arclength.
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Chapter 18 - The Sine Function- Definition

Until now we have restricted our study of the Sine function to triangles where:

Remember a function is by definition only a function when the output is directly related to the input. For example the following function gives the Volume of water in a bowl as function of height:

Input any height and one can easily calculate the volume. However the function,

is not a function as none of the variables; opposite, hypotenuse, or angle (theta) are related in any way. Give me an angle and I can not give you the Sine of it, that is without looking it

up in some table. To begin our study of the Sine function, we need to first find a way of defining it as a mathematical function, such that the Sine of an angle is a function of the angle inputted. It therefore behooves us to define what exactly is an angle. Till now we have assumed an understanding of angles and we looked at Triangles to show what they mean. Before defining what an angle is, let us now take an important look at circles to see how angles can be defined by them. From the Pythagorean theorem we showed that in any right triangle, equation : . The

Is therefore the set of all points a distance r from the origin, from the distance formula which is based on the Pythagorean theorem. The important point to realize here is that the co-ordinates of each point on the circle gives us the dimension of a unique right-triangle with base, x , height, y and hypotenuse r. Each point satisfies the Pythagorean theorem for right triangles, ; though the radius or hypotenuse remains fixed, the x and y.s can take on infinite values. To visualize these concepts, the Graph of the circle

Let us now look at how to define an angle in terms of the circle. An angle in all simplicity is the measurement of rotation between two intersecting lines. This rotation can be expressed in terms of the arc length of the circle. If you follow the path of a point at (3,0) to (0,3) along the arc of the circle then you will notice that the radius drawn to each point on the path will increase at a steady rate.

You can notice two points here. First the circumference of this circle is given by the formula:

This tells us the total arc length of this circle is just , where r is the radius. Now if we define there to be 360 degrees in a circle, what this means is that a line that rotates a full circle to return to its original position will have covered 360 degrees ( a completely arbitrary number). Since degrees are a measurement of an angle, or the amount a line or r in the graph has rotated then we must figure out some method of relating the arc length, a measurement of rotation to degrees. If we define there to be 360 degrees in one full rotation the ratio of some number of degrees to 360 degrees must equal the ration of the arc length covered to the total arc length of the circle.

Multiplying terms out to solve for degrees gives us:

There is still one thing left, this definition of degrees is entirely dependent on the radius of the circle. If you recall from our discussion of the relativity of size in mathematics as being meaningless without reference to something else, then theoretically 30 degrees should be independent of the size of the circle it is measured in. To account for this we introduce an important new concept, the radian. The radian is a relativistic measurement for arc length that gives us the arc length measurement in terms of the radius of the circle. For example in a circle of radius 2, the circumference is 4 . An arc length of 2 radians is then just 4 units long or twice the radius. Since the circumference of the circle is directly related to its radius then an arc length in radians will always have the same relative size to its circle, regardless of the size of the circle. This probably sounds more confusing than it really is, but this is all because we are looking for a way to define degrees in terms of arc length. If we replace arc length with radians*r, where r represents the constant radius and radians is any number which could be a fraction we get:

This important equation now tells us how to define an angle in terms of the radian measurement of an arc length, measured in radians. We can re-write it as:

The important point to realize throughout this discussion of what an angle is, is that angles can only be first defined in terms of arc length rotations between two lines measured in

radians. Having established radians, only then can we also use degrees, which is just another unit of measurement of angles entirely based on radians. Instead of calling an angle .86 radians we can say 60 degrees:

Degrees are directly related to radians, and are more often used when there is no reference circle to define an angle easily. Let us now return to our discussion of circles. Having established just what an angle refers to conceptually we now need to define an angle mathematically. We shall select for our study a circle of radius one, which is often called the unit-circle, for reasons soon to be seen. If we draw a small triangle in the unit-circle we can see that:

In such a triangle

What this means is that for any point on the unit circle, the Sine of the arc length measured from (0,) to (x, y) will be the y value of that particular arc length. For example:

In terms of triangles and degrees, this says that the ratio of the opposite side to the hypotenuse of a 45 degree angle is just . It is extremely important to forget about triangles and degrees for the moment but just concentrate on circles and arc lengths which are both mathematically defined shapes. In terms of the unit circle whose the angle measurement 45 degrees is expressed in terms of the arc length of a circle whose radius is 1. pi/4 then refers to an arc length of 0.78 radii. Error in picture below, it should say 0.78, not 1.56

We are now ready to define the Sine function as that function that outputs the y-value for an inputted arc length of a unit circle. The cosine functions gives us the x-value for that same arc length. It is here where the difficulty arises. We need to find a way of expressing the arc length of a circle a unit circle in terms of x and y. By being able to calculate the arclength in terms of x and y values, the Sines and Cosines will just be the x and y values of the point until which we are calculating the arc length. Therefore the Sine function is really an arc length function as we shall soon see. To begin let us recall our formula for calculating the length of curves of graphs of equations. It was defined as the following differential that gives the length of a hypotenuse used to

approximate the graph over a small interval of x.

Integrating it to find the total arc length.

For example the length from 0 to 1 of the following graph of y= 5x is:

The length of the graph from 0 to 1 therefore has length 5.22.

Relating this to our study of the circle, the arc length can be expressed as follows:

The derivative of this function for a circle is:

The arc length from zero to a where, a is less than or equal to 1 is:

In the circle this translates to:

There are two important points to understand here. First for any inputted the output will be an arc length measured in radians since we are dealing with the unit circle.

For example if I were to evaluate the integral from x=0 to x=1 I should get The second point to keep in mind is that therefore Returning to our integral we have: is the same as

or 1.57 radii. and is

Simplifying the integral:

The expression in the radical, fractions:

can be further reduced to

by adding the two

This now gives us:

The question now arises, . how do we interpret this or relate it to the Sine function. To answer this let us study the graph of the circle once more. Since we commonly measure arc lengths in radians or degrees beginning at (1,0) it will require a moments thought to realize that now we are measuring angles from (0,1).

First take a look at section 1. It represents the way we initially defined the Sine Function, where Sine( arc length) = y. Now examine section 2. It is exactly the same as section 1 excepts instead of y we have x. The sections are identical because the graph of a circle is symmetric about the line y= x. We can therefore define the Sine function as follows.

Since x is our output and not our input here, we need to find a better way of defining the Sine function. If you recall from our study of inverse functions, we saw that the inverse function always yields x when inputted in the original function since a function and its inverse were essentially the same function except that the x and y were switched around, and the two functions were then graphed in the same x-y plane. For example if we had then its inverse was found by replacing y with x to get point (x, y) on the graph of inverse; example: then inputing y values from in or . Since any has a corresponding point on (y, x) on the graph of its would output x values. For

This may sound more complicated then it really is but we can now conclude that since the Sine of the arc length integral outputs x, then that integral is the inverse of the Sine function:

The inverse sine function is commonly called the arcsine function which is analogous to asking what angle or arc length has sin x?

At this point is important to stop thinking about angles, degrees, and triangles. What is essential now are circles and arc lengths measured in radians. The Sine function, mathematically speaking is then just the function gives the corresponding x value of an arc length measured from to 0 to x on the circle. The inverse sine of a number x is then just the arc length from 0 to x on the graph of a circle. This is all it is, nothing more, nothing less. The inverse sine function is therefore our most important function since it serves as the base for calculating arc lengths for any

This concludes our definition of the Sine function as mathematical function to express the arc length of a unit circle, or any circle. You can already begin to see the problems we will encounter in integrating it since the arc length approach infinity towards x=1.

Chapter 19 - Differentiating and Integrating the Sine function

In the previous chapter we underwent a long and thorough analysis of just defining the Sine function mathematically. This was done with by calculating the arc length of a circle, the inverse sine of x being the arc length from zero to x. The goal of this chapter is to differentiate and integrate this function and as we shall soon see, the sine function will be unlike any other function studied so far. From the definition of the inverse sine or arcsine function we have:

Once again if you recall from the Chapter on inverse we learned that a function and its inverse are essentially the same function. We can therefore easily find an expression for based on the definition for integrate . The only problem here is that we have to . We do however know how

before we can find a way of expressing

to calculate the derivative of

. From the definition of the integral it is:

By following the algorithm presented in the chapter on inverses for finding the derivative of a functions inverse we can find the derivative of the Sine function without having found a way to define it yet. We first replace any x with its y equivalent so as to be able to find the derivative with any given y-value.

From the graph of the circle this tells us that the derivative of the inverse sine function is just 1 over the y value of that particular arc length.

From the graph you can see that this value corresponds to the Cosine of the arc length or

angle by the definition of the Cosine Function. Therefore:

There is one important difference to keep in mind. The

in the left side refers to the means a

derivative of the inverse Sine function or arc length function of x. Therefore

small change in the arc length. On the other hand the y in the is just referring to the point until which this arc length is being measured in terms of the unit circle. We can now write:

Remember arc length and

are the same thing from our definition of the angle. In the

graph of the inverse sine function, x is our independent variable and or arc length is our dependent variable. Since the Sine function is the inverse of the inverse Sine function, then is our independent variable and x is our dependent variable. This means that the derivative of the Sine function is given by:

Since we already calculated the derivative of the inverse Sine function to be which is simply 1 over the Cosine of the angle, then the derivative of the Sine function is just the reciprocal of that:

This important conclusion tells us that the derivative of the Sine function is just the Cosine of that particular angle or arc length. The Sine function inputs arc lengths and outputs the corresponding x-value of that arc length. Therefore its derivative with respect to arc length is just the Cosine of that arc length.

To find the derivative of the Cosine function first recall that

. This tells is that the derivative of the Cosine function with respect to arc length is just the negative Sine of that arc length. To summarize:

We have now found the derivative of the Sine function in terms of the Sine and Cosine of the arc length, . There still remains the stumbling block, what is or arc length? Though we have shown rather crudely what is the derivative of the Sine and Cosine function are , we still have not found a way of defining inverse function: . The only obstacle was our definition for the

There is absolutely no way we can evaluate this integral. You can understand this in two ways. First the derivative approaches infinity as x goes to 1 and second from the graph of the circle, arc length is continuous never ending length. It goes round and round the circle forever. Though we have defined a beginning there is no end. It is this complex nature of the arc length of a circle that tells us that there is no way to solve its using real numbers. It is what we call an irrational integral and can only be solved with complex or imaginary numbers, . The best way of thinking of what imaginary numbers are is that they are numbers that basically tell us there is no solution to the equation. There is nothing magical or transcending about them. If we ever see them, they only alert is that the equation has no solutions. Using complex numbers the integration goes as follows: First factor out -1 in the denominator:

Factoring out a

gives us:

The derivative of

is:

We have shown how Since is the inverse of where y = arc length:

. Now let us find an expression for

, we only need to interchange y and x to solve for y,

Factoring out a i or

from

gives us:

where and Eulers equation:

. This now reduces to the famous

You might object to our replacing y with

. Do not forget that when and i interchanging x with y,

, y referred to arc length or y then refers to

since that is what we were initially calculating.

Eulers equation probably makes little sense to you. All it really is is another way of expressing the relationship between the complex logarithm and circular functions ( Stillwell 221 ). The sine and cosine functions are therefore solutions to such irrational integrals. There is still one way of defining which is through an infinite series of terms based on the binomial expansion theorem, which defines an infinite series for sums raised to negative and fractional exponents:

or more simply:

Though we will study infinite series in more detail in the following chapter, it would do no harm to begin the study with our inverse Sine dilemma. As the expansion for for is valid for all values of n, then we are able to write the integral

in a different way:

Which now becomes:

The binomial expansion is:

This is clearly an infinite series with never ending terms since Integrating the series will give us the series for

will never equal

The series is valid for -1 < x < 1. For each term in the series will get larger, causing the series to diverge. We will talk more about how this series works in the next chapter. Summary In these three lengthy chapters we undertook an in depth study of defining the Sine function. Beginning with the simplest definitions we moved on to defining its inverse function as an arc length:

The

is in reality the arc length of a circle as a function of x or:

We showed how angles can only be measured in radians, a relative measurement that relates arc length to the rotation of two lines and the angle they define. Thus:

This relates degrees, measured in radians, as a function of x. The integral being un-integrable due to the unique properties of the circle, could only be solved with imaginary numbers. We then went on to prove the complex relationship between the exponential function and the Sine function, or .

Last but not least we were shown, rather simply, how the inverse sine function can be

expressed as an infinite series of terms based on the binomial theorem for negative fractional exponents. Our study of the Sine function will resume in the next chapter when we study the function in yet another way, actually the same way but by using some new theorems from Calculus.

Chapter 20 - Applications of the Sine Function - Oscillatory Motion

Having gone through a long and detailed study of the Sine function the time arrives for us to study its applications. There are many applications of the Sine function, however, the most common are relate the dynamics of vibrating or oscillating systems. By oscillating system we mean any object whose motion can be characterized as a continuous back and forth never ending motion. Such motion occurs when the resistance to motion of a body in motion is directly proportional to the distance covered and acts in a direction that is opposite to the direction of movement. The typical and simplest example of this is just a simple spring with a body or block of mass m attached to it.

If we assume that the block with mass m rests on a friction less surface then the block is free to oscillate with any horizontal force. According to Hooke's law the force required to stretch a spring is directly proportional to the length of the spring. Each spring therefore has a constant, known as the spring constant k which tells us the force required to stretch the spring a given distance. For example if the spring constant, k, of a rather stiff spring such as those used in cars as opposed to a slinky, were 1800 newtons per meter or k= 1800 N/m then to stretch the spring one meter would require a force of 1800 Newtons and to further stretch it three meters would require a force three times as great or 5400 N. This is all in accord with Hookes Law, which states that the more you stretch it the greater the force required. Consider now the block above of mass m at equilibrium position. By equilibrium position we mean the object is at rest with no unbalanced force acting on it. This tells us that the spring is being neither compressed nor stretched but is just lying there attached to the block. If we stretch the block a distance x from its equilibrium position and let go of it, then it will oscillate back and forth. Our goal is to mathematically describe this motion.

The amplitude of oscillation is 2x and the maximum force exerted by the spring on the block is kx. Keep in mind however that the force is zero at the equilibrium position , since the spring is un-stretched there and at this point the blocks entire energy is kinetic while at the endpoints of its oscillation it possesses entirely potential energy stored in the spring and its velocity is zero. Since the spring exerts a force kx when stretched, the work done stretch a spring a distance x is given by:

The work required to stretch a spring a distance x is equal to . When any mass m is stretched a distance x then let go of it will be pulled back with a force that varies with the distance stretched. The total energy of the system varies between kinetic and potential energy depending on the masss position. The kinetic energy of the block in motion is always equal to ,

where v is its velocity at a particular point. At that point x the potential energy will be or the energy used to stretch the spring to that position. The sum of the potential and kinetic energy of the block at any point is a constant that never changes. It corresponds to the net energy of the oscillating system:

At x=0, the velocity is a maximum and when v=0, x is a maximum and the block is at its

endpoint.

. Let us first solve the equation for v:

Multiplying both sides by 2 gives:

Now substituting velocity for

and separating variable yields:

Integrating both sides:

Recall that E stood for the total energy of the system. At its endpoints the velocity of the block is zero. The total energy is then equal to where equals half the amplitude

of oscillation.

Substituting back into our integral gives us:

We can factor out a

from the denominator to get:

We can take out the constant

from the integral to get:

We can now factor out to get:

from

and then remove the constant A from the integral

This integral now has the familiar solution that we have studied:

where

and

has the solution:

Now that we have solved it, how do we interpret it or make sense of this solution? Basically this solution tells us that the time required for the mass to a distance x from the equilibrium position. We can therefore easily calculate the period of the oscillation, the time required for the mass to complete one cycle. The period would be four times the time required for the mass to move from x=0 to x= . Substituting this into our solution gives:

This answer tells us that the period of an oscillating mass on a spring is independent of the amplitude of the oscillation. For this reason springs are used in watches. Despite airresistance and friction between the spring and other parts that would cause the Amplitude to gradually decrease over time, the period of vibration would remain unchanged. Just as we are able to find time as a function of x, we can find x as a function of time using the Sine function or the inverse Sine Function. We saw that:

Multiplying both sides by

gives us:

Taking the Sine of both sides just switching around the dependent and independent variable:

( Many physics books replace = . The reason being

with

, where =2 f and f, frequency= 1/t, t= period

stands for radians/sec and hence keeps the units in order

and simplifies calculations.) Now that we have the position x as a function of time we can differentiate the function one to find the velocity and twice to find the acceleration.

This expression

in

with its original reference, x

or position since

. This now gives us:

Since Force is by definition mass* acceleration, if we multiply the function for acceleration by m we get:

This is what we originally started with, Hookes Law. The force in a spring is proportional to the distance it is stretched and acts in the opposite direction of the motion to oppose the motion. Before ending you might be wondering what happened to the constants? I decided not to put them in as to avoid any unnecessary variables or numbers that would impede your understanding of the important concepts being studied. The solutions with the constants included should here forth read:

Summary

In this chapter we saw how in a spring the force required to stretch the spring is directly proportional to the length stretched. Recalling that force is defined as mass* acceleration or F= ma, where acceleration is the second derivative of the position function of an object in motion:

This can be rewritten as

The only function whose second derivative is proportional to negative of the original function is the Sine function, since:

Therefore this chapter was in essence devoted to the understanding of how the Sine function and its derivative apply to applications where the second derivative is directly proportional to the negative of the original function. This is why the Sine function is restricted to Oscillatory motion, since a force -kx, will always act so as to oppose the motion of the body in any direction. From the Conservation of Energy the body will then rebound back in the opposite direction once whatever force acting on it brings its velocity to zero because all the energy will now have been transferred from the mass to the system. In such a way this back and forth process goes on forever until interrupted by other forces such as friction.
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Chapter 21 - The Mean Value Theorem

The Mean Value Theorem is a rather simple and obvious theorem yet the same can not be said about its implications in Calculus. Its proof will offer an important review of the definition of the derivative and the integral. Let us begin with the graph of and its

derivative

Before continuing it is important to keep in mind that from the definition of the derivative, the derivative of , gives us the slope at any point on the graph of

The area under the graph of the derivative from x=4 to x=6 is given by:

, of the graph of the anti-derivative from x=4 to x=6 is exactly the area under its derivative bounded by the same interval. Remember from the definition of the integral:

we calculated to be 10. If we draw a line through (4,8) and (6,18), and draw an imaginary base of length , then we get somewhat of a triangle. The slope of this line is . Therefore the area under the graph also equals the slope of this line multiplied by the change in x, 2 or 5*2=10.

Now we know that there is a point on the graph of

between x=4 and x=6 that has

the same slope as the line connecting the endpoints of the interval (4,8), (6,18). The reason we know that this is true is because the line connecting the two endpoints is the direct way to link the two points. Since the graph of takes a curved way to connect the points then somewhere along its path its direction must be parallel to the connecting line if it is to ever reach the endpoint. Now that we know such a point exists and that the derivative of the graph is defined at every point, then the change in y, 10, can be found by finding the slope of the line that is parallel to the line through (4,8) and (6,18). This slope is . This tells us that there exists a value c between 4 and 6, such that the derivative evaluated at this point c, gives the slope of the line parallel to the line connecting the two endpoints on the anti-derivative. Since this line must lie between x=4 and x=6, then c must also lie in this interval, and equals the value at which this line exists. We can express this as:

Our results can be generalized:

This is the mean value theorem; there exists a number c between a and b on the graph of f.(x) such that f.(c) gives the slope of a tangent through f(c) that is parallel to the line through (a, f(a)) and (b, f(b)). Conceptually speaking it is important to remember this as:

The area under the curve of a graph can be expressed either by evaluating the integral at the endpoints or by finding a number c, between a and b, and multiplying it by the change in x, (b-a). In other words the net change in a function.s anti-derivative can be found by just using the function itself. As we shall see, finding that constant, c, is another problem

itself.

Chapter 22 - Taylor Series

Our introductory study of Calculus ends with a short but important study of series. The special type of series known as Taylor series, allow us to express any mathematical function, real or complex, in terms of its n derivatives. The Taylor series can also be called a power series as each term is a power of x, multiplied by a different constant

are determined by the functions derivatives. For example the constant on the function.s third derivative, on the sixth derivative or and so on.

is based

It is obvious that a function with a finite number of derivatives would have a finite number of terms as . On the other hand ,infinitely differentiable functions such as exponential and trigonometric functions would be expressed as an infinite series, whose accuracy in expressing the function would be determined by the number of terms of the series used The proof of Taylor.s Theorem involves a combination of the Fundamental theorem of Calculus and the Mean value theorem, where we are integrating a function, . These two theorems say: to get

A quick review of the mean value theorem tells us that:

. We therefore know:

We can now integrate the function

once. Integrating the left side gives us:

is just a constant, and is equal to the n.th derivative evaluated at some point c, between a and x. And Integrating the right side:

Combining the two results gives us:

If we integrate once again, third time, we get on the left side:

On the right side we get:

Combining the two sides:

Integrating this entire mass a fourth time, where we started with the function gives as you may have already guessed from the pattern:

By now the pattern should be clear. If we integrate n successive times to eventually find f(x) we arrive at a remarkable conclusion:

Which simplifies to:

What this is saying is that any function can be expressed as a series of its (n-1) derivatives, each evaluated at any point, .a., plus its n.th derivative evaluated at a point between a and x. Since the first few terms of the series are:

One needs to not only know the value of f(x) at f(a) but also at f.(a), f..(a), f...(a) etc... in order to find f(x),where x, is any number other than a. The last term of the Taylor series differs slightly from its preceding terms. One needs to be able to calculate for a c somewhere in between a and x.

In a faintly differentiable function such as so that

the n.th derivative is always a constant . For example:

is that particular constant regardless of c in

In this case, = , which will always be 3 no matter what you input in the function. Remember n.th derivative refers to the last derivative of the function.

In order to write or calculate a Taylor series for we first need to calculate its n derivatives, which we have already done above. The Taylor Series is defined as:

Simplifying it we get:

The easiest number to choose for a is probably 1, though you can choose whatever number you want to for a , so long as its n derivatives are all defined at a. Substituting a for 1 gives:

Now let us evaluate f(x) at x=6 using the Taylor Series:

The sum of the series of terms corresponds exactly; however, as you can see, writing a Taylor Series for a faintly differentiable function is not a practical thing to do. For example in this series we had to calculate in the last term in order to find f(6) or . Now if we directly

were able to calculate with ease then would it not be much easier to find without having to go through a series of calculations and summations? The answer is yes and thus the life of finite Taylor Series is short-lived.

The situation is a bit more complex when dealing with infinitely differentiable functions such as . In this case one can easily go on differentiating the function as many times as you desire to create an infinite Taylor series where each term is evaluated at some point a. The problem is that no matter how many terms you use, there will always be that last term that needs to be evaluated at an unknown point c, between a and x. Even if we use an infinite number of terms for our Taylor series to be evaluated at some known point a, how de we know that our infinite plus one) or last term does not completely throw off our answer? From the definition of Taylor Series:

f(x) is expressed as a series of consecutive positive integer powers of x from . The last term is hence:

Here we have replaced the unknown constant

with

. In the case where a=0, our

last term of the Taylor series becomes:

Taking the limit as n goes to infinity:

The limit in the brackets is zero as the factorial grows much faster than the exponential, remember x can take on any value but it can never be larger than infinity or n.

No matter what value of the last term will always be zero provided an infinite number of terms are used in the series. The same is true of:

As a is only a constant; however, the closer x is to a the more accurate your answer will be using fewer terms. To conclude the Taylor Series for a function of x is:

Where the last term for a function of finite derivatives is some constant, independent of c, multiplied by . In a function of infinite derivatives the last term goes to zero after an infinite number of preceding terms. The closer x is to a then the few the terms needed to obtain an accurate answer Therefore Taylor Series hold true for all functions so long as one is able to evaluate its n derivatives as a point a. Let us move on to an important example of such infinitely differentiable functions such as . This is an infinitely differentiable function and as we shall see the infinite Taylor series provides an important way of relating square roots of a number through a series of terms than can be easily evaluated. The answer can be obtained from the Binomial expansion, but let us use Taylor series to show the relation between the binomial theorem and Taylor series. We will first use eight terms by differentiating the function seven times:

Now writing the Taylor Series:

Since we can evaluate each of the n-derivatives at x=1, then we will let a=1, which simplifies the series to:

Take note of how the fraction preceding each term gets smaller and smaller. This is a check, that tells us that the last terms get closer and closer to zero, and hence the Taylor series will be defined for all x.

Let us use this series to find the square root of 2 or

After a few simple calculations we arrive at:

From the calculator the square root of two is:

Therefore using eight terms we found the square root of two to an error of only .50% or half

a percent. Had we used more terms the error would have been even less. With an infinite amount of terms the error would be zero or next to nothing.

Chapter 23 - More on Taylor Series

In this second chapter on Taylor Series, we will be studying the case where the n.th derivative of an infinitely differentiable function, does not go to zero. In such cases we therefore have to restrict our values of x., such that for these values the series does converge and not diverge. We will also take a look at the series for the Exponential and Sine function.

Let us begin with a look once again at the series for the infinitely differentiable function, the square root of x. The theories that we are to develop will hold true for any function raised to a positive or negative fractional exponent.

Remember we let a=1 to find the square root of any number x. Take a close look at the fractions preceding each term:

It seems that they are slowly going to zero, but now look at the terms of the Taylor Series:

Since each term represents a power of some number (x-1), then we can conclude that if this number is greater than 1, then each term in the series will get larger and larger and approach infinity, in the infinite term. However if the absolute value of (x-1) were less than 1, then as the number of terms in the series increased, the value of each term will decrease. Therefore we can say that the following series is only valid for:

This tells us that for x in this range of values, the infinite term will go to zero and the series will converge. Remember, the more times you multiply a fraction by itself, the smaller it becomes.

Now that we have defined the series for a certain range of numbers then we can extend this range to include all the real numbers. For example we can find the square root of any fraction . This means we can find the square root of any number, greater , then we just

than 2, by taking the reciprocal of its square root. If we had to find the

rewrite it as

. Since

then we just find the square root of

by letting x=

, then taking the reciprocal of this value. Now let us move on to finding Taylor Series for the exponential and Complex Sine Function. The Taylor series for The series is then: >can be easily found since its n derivatives are all the same, .

The easiest value to choose for a is 0 since

Since the limit as n goes to infinity of is zero, regardless of what value x is, then the series is valid for any value of. Letting x=1 and using only the first eight terms gives us the value for e:

The calculator value for e is 2.718281828 which corresponds to an error of less than .001 % using only eight terms. The more terms used the more accurate your answer will be. Now that we have found the series for >we can find the Taylor series for y= ln (x), which is also an infinitely differentiable function. Fist let is find its n. derivatives:

Using the first seven derivatives we write the following Taylor series:

Letting a equal 1:

There is one small problem here. Though the Natural Log of x is defined for all values of x greater than zero, the Taylor series on the other hand is only valid for 1<x<2. If x were three for example, the series on the right would diverge as each term, larger. In an infinitely differentiable function as in will get larger and

, we assumed that the last term in:

went to zero as n went to infinity. This was based on the fact that

However in the case of the series for the natural log of x, the last few terms become:

Taking the limit as n goes to infinity:

The limit of this function clearly goes to infinity as long as the absolute value of

is

greater than 1. Conversely if is less than 1 or , then the last term will go to zero and the Taylor Series will hold true. By making the modification to the Taylor Series for ln(x), the series will converge for . Since a =1 the series converges for:

Hence the series:

is valid for x between 0 and 2. Despite the restricted value of x, we are still able to calculate the ln (x) for any x, by just taking reciprocal values. If we wanted to find the ln (40), 40>2 we would have to calculate which equals

The Taylor Series for Sin(x) and Cos(x) are also quite easy to find. Since we know the derivative of Sin(x) is Cos(x) and Cos(x) is -Sin(x) and we can evaluate these functions at a=0, as Sin(0)=0 and Cos(0)=1, the Taylor Series are as follows. First find the first few derivatives.

Using this to write the Taylor Series for the first eight terms is:

Letting a=1

Since the limit the infinite term in this series goes to zero as n goes to infinity, then the series is convergent for all values of x. Differentiating the series gives us the Taylor series for Cos(x):

This solution is remarkable .It allows us to define the Sine and Cosine functions mathematically in terms of an infinite series. You might be wondering how the series is define for any arc length, etc. From the graph of the circle it is clear that its arc length is continuous and passes throughout the same point infinite times as it completes its rounds. For this reason our integral for the inverse sine function could only be solved using imaginary numbers. Our study of the Sine function began with simplicity, rose to reason, climaxed in the abstract, fell into the imaginary, and now ends in perfection. Our study of Taylor Series showed us how by integrating a function , n times, we were able to express f(x) in terms of its n derivatives evaluated at a point a with the last terms being evaluated at some point c, between a and x. The series took the form:

Taylor.s Theorem thus states:

The important point to realize here is that n stands for an integer, such that a finite differentiable function can be expressed as a series of its n derivatives evaluated at some point a. The last term, can be found regardless of the value of c sine the last derivative of a finite differentiable function is always a constant. As we saw, expressing finite differentiable functions in terms of a series of powers of x turned out to be impractical. It is here where we saw the value of extending Taylor.s theorem to infinitely differentiable functions. This would mean we would have an infinite series with infinite derivatives. The only way to prove that such a series could be written

and would hold true for any value of x was by taking the limit of:

If the limit was zero then we know that , or the last term of the series also goes to zero and therefore the series converges for al values of x . If this limit did not go to zero then we had to modify or restrict the values of such that the series would converge for those values of x. We could then extend this interval for all real numbers.

Chapter 24 - Techniques of Integration

We have studied a great variety of functions and their derivatives. Until now the process of differentiation has been straight-forward and mechanical. For example

If in any of the above functions, x was replaced by u, where u is another function of x, then by the Chain rule:

From the product rule, the derivative of any product uv, the derivative was:

The rules for Integration, as we already know are unfortunately not so straightforward as in differentiation. The reason for this is because there are numerous ways to write a function, yet only one of these ways will resemble a differentiable form. Therefore the key to integration lies in finding that integratable form and as we shall soon see, that form is not necessarily the simplest form. Let us take a look at two simple functions and show the variety of ways it can be simplified, expanded and re-written.

or another example:

Even though all these functions are equal to the original function, they can not be integrated directly as they do not appear in a differentiable form. The only two functions that can be integrated directly are the original functions , whose integrals

are and respectively. If you closely examine the physically different, yet mathematically equal functions, you can notice that in most cases the integrable form is quite evident and can easily be found with a few quick simplifications such as:

In other cases the distinction is not so evident.

This final and important chapter is devoted to the study of functions that at first glance look impossible to integrate; however, after the application of certain simplifications and rewriting techniques, the function can be integrated. The first of these techniques is called integration by parts. It allows us to evaluate the integral of a product, in terms of the integral of one factor multiplied by the derivative of the other. From the product rule we have.

or just:

Integrating both sides gives us:

Solving for

gives us:

For example to integrate the product of Now that we have expressed the derivative as a sum of derivatives to get: , we can integrate the

The reason why this integration technique works is based on the product rule which allows us to differentiate a product as a sum of two functions, . Even when not integrating a product, one can always let such that v=x. The next technique that we shall study is based on the derivatives for the Sine and inverse Sine function. From the previous chapter we saw how was defined as:

or by the definition of the integral the derivative of derivative of Sin(x) was found to be Cos(x).

is

. Based on this the

Furthermore we showed how all other trigonometric function such as Tan(x) and Sec(x) could be expressed in terms of Sin(x) and Cos(x), or just Sin(x) since Cos(x) is also dependent on Sin(x). With this in mind let us see how we can express the inverse tangent ans secant functions in terms of the inverse sine function. The function is defined as the arclength from 0 to x on a circle or:

If we define the inverse tan function to give us the ratio of the x value to the y value for a particular arclength then:

Where

gives us an arclength for that particular value of x, and the tangent of that . If we let and then differentiate both sides we

arclength gives us get:

We have found the derivative of

but we need to find the derivative of

not

. To do so we first need to define

in terms of

. The

function tell us the x value for a given arc length. Now if for the same arclength , the Tangent were x, then what would be the Sine of the Arclength. To answer this, let is consider the following graph again:

In this circle, the tangent of the angle is x, and the Sine of the angle is

. Hence:

For any angle whose Tangent is x, its sine will be

. Differentiating both sides yields:

Further simplification yields:

The derivative of the inverse Tangent function is just

or more importantly.

By similar means we can find the derivative of other inverse trigonometric functions, by first defining it in terms of the Sine of the angle and then differentiating it.

The underlying concept in these definitions is the fact that the inverse tangent, secant and any other trigonemetric functions can be expressed in terms of integrating them is much easier as we already have them defined. such that

As we mentioned before, the difficulty of integration lies in the fact that a function could be written in so many different ways.