I want to learn calculus. How and where should I start?
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Anonymous2008-09-23 19:48
I have a few books by Micheal Spivak and James Stewart, but I don't know which one to start on.
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Anonymous2008-09-23 20:48
Depends. When and where was your last math course?
If it was more than a year ago, I would really recommend going to wikibooks and taking a weekend to review the basics and prerequisites. Other than that, it doesn't really matter where you learn it, so long as you actually do a lot of practice problems. You won't really learn it without actually doing it. Period.
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Anonymous2008-09-23 23:08
1) Get Calculus Book
2) Read + Problems
3) Now you can calculus
Kind of related. Are there any good books on math and math theories (where book refers to actual book, as opposed to text books assigned in classes). I'm currently in my first year of college now, really enjoying Calculus and Physics. I'm undecided on a minor, but thinking about math. I'm just looking for an interesting read.
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Anonymous2008-09-25 0:09
So back in high school I was a moron when it came to math. Had gotten a D on my pre-calc class. But all my buddies where going to take Calculus, and I just totally had to go with them.
The teacher didn't give out exams to screen students, instead, anyone was allowed to enroll.
So here I was, being a loser, didn't know what the fuck he was talking about, so I got my shit together one day (still early on in the class) and I went to google and searched for calculus tutorials of sorts.
Lo and behold, I found a website that had a simple flash tutorial about Calculus. After watching this little flash tutorial I was enlightened. Suddenly, everything made sense!
From then on after, when ever anybody asks me how I learned Calculus, I tell them, "from a flash tutorial on the internet."
PS: I'm a very visual learner, which I believe attributed to what happened.
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Anonymous2008-09-25 12:35
>>2
I have Spivak's and it seems pretty acclaimed. Haven't started on it yet though (first term hasn't begun yet).
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Anonymous2008-09-25 15:39
>>7
you still have the link? or some hints how to find it?
>>10
That website is the corniest thing I've ever seen. That said, I wish I had that link in Calc I
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Anonymous2008-10-04 6:25
>>1
If you are serious about learning calculus correctly, buy Apostol's 2-volume set on calculus. Do not use Stewart. It's written for blacks and spics.
Spivak if you want to be a real mathematician or theoretical physicist, anything else if you want to be a faggoty engineer
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Anonymous2008-10-09 17:47
Britfag here
I understand the basic technical side of calculus, and what you're actually intuitively doing when differentiating and intergrating (with or without limits), but I dont understand the 'with respect to "whatever variable"'.
It would be appreciated if someone could give an overview of what it means, as its preventing me from understanding whats going on in the stuff im doing now.
Our derivative with respect to x is dy/dx = 2x. This means that the rate of change of y divided by that of x is equal to 2x. The "with respect to x" means you want to find the ratio between the rise in the function divided by the rise in x, loosely.
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Anonymous2008-10-10 6:12
OP is going to have no clue what u mean unless u use diagrams man
Spivak is the real way to learn mathematics is you are going to be a mathematician. If you are going the applied route like econ, something like Stew may even do the job.