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Books > Science & Mathematics > Mathematics > Calculus & mathematical analysis > General
Calculus from Approximation to Theory takes a fresh and innovative
look at the teaching and learning of calculus. One way to describe
calculus might be to say it is a suite of techniques that
approximate curved things by flat things and through a limiting
process applied to those approximations arrive at an exact answer.
Standard approaches to calculus focus on that limiting process as
the heart of the matter. This text places its emphasis on the
approximating processes and thus illuminates the motivating ideas
and makes clearer the scientific usefulness, indeed centrality, of
the subject while paying careful attention to the theoretical
foundations. Limits are defined in terms of sequences, the
derivative is defined from the best affine approximation, and
greater attention than usual is paid to numerical techniques and
the order of an approximation. Access to modern computational tools
is presumed throughout and the use of these tools is woven
seamlessly into the exposition and problems. All of the central
topics of a yearlong calculus course are covered, with the addition
of treatment of difference equations, a chapter on the complex
plane as the arena for motion in two dimensions, and a much more
thorough and modern treatment of differential equations than is
standard. Dan Sloughter is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at
Furman University with interests in probability, statistics, and
the philosophy of mathematics and statistics. He has been involved
in efforts to reform calculus instruction for decades and has
published widely on that topic. This book, one of the results of
that work, is very well suited for a yearlong introduction to
calculus that focuses on ideas over techniques.
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