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Calculus begins with an apparently simple and harmless question,"What is speed and
how can we calculate it?"
This question arose very naturally round about the year
1600 A.D., when all kinds of moving objects-from
planets to pendulums- were being studied.
Men were then just starting to study the
material world intensively. From that study
the modern world has developed, with the
knowledge of stars and atoms, of machines
and genes, that we have today, for good and
for ill. One might have expected the study o f
speed to have very limited applications-to
machinery, to falling objects, to the movements
of the heavenly bodies. But it has not been so.
become important in more advanced work?If we do so, the beginner will be confused
because he will not see any need for these warnings. If we do not, we shall be denounced
by mathematicians for deceiving the young.
I believe the correct approach is to do one thing at a time. When you take a student into a
quiet road to drive a car for the first time, he has plenty to do in learning which is the brake
and which the accelerator, how to steer, and how to park. You do not discuss with him how
to deal with heavy traffic which is not there, nor what he would do if it were winter and the
road were covered with ice. But you might very well warn him that such conditions exist, so
that he does not over estimate what he knows.
Mathematics also is an exploration. As we push out further, we meet new and unexpected
situations and we have to revise our ideas. Rules we have used, theorems we have proved
turn out to have unforeseen weaknesses. If I were asked to write on a sheet of paper all the
statements that I was absolutely sure of, statements that would be true at every time and
place, I should leave the paper blank.Source: About Calculus by Saqwyer, Calculus
Applications by B.N.Panth, Calculus Course by S.Chari (my teacher)