5 ms·
While I learned calculus, both in highschool and in university, both introductions belabored the concept of an infinitesimal. I remember a good portion of both
by cuddlybacon 6y ago
While I learned calculus, both in highschool and in university, both introductions belabored the concept of an infinitesimal.
I remember a good portion of both classes finding the concept confusing.
EDIT: It seems like the top-level comment by user woah also finds it confusing.
- apricot 6y agoWhen I took my first calculus class, in the 1980s, we spent the first few weeks of the course just computing limits. No reason was given, and no context, just techniques. I remember having to compute the limit of 2x+1 as x goes to 3 by writing it as the limit of 2x + the limit of 1, and then saying the first limit is 2 times the limit of x, and so on. Utterly boring, especially when the teacher couldn't even answer us when we asked "if we already know we'll get 7 by setting x to 3, why do we have to write all this?" The whole thing almost put me off math. There's a time and place to introduce properties of limits, but the first month of calculus 1 isn't it.
- canjobear 6y agoMy first month of calculus was identical, in the 2000s.