Calculus I - Lesson 2: A continuation from first principles

[Dave]

I'm going to wait until LaTeX is fixed again before I go and write the next bit lesson, so it might be a while depending on how long it takes to get fixed

[Sayonara]

I'm planning to play catch-up this weekend.

Been busy with IHH

...or at some point this week

 

No rest for the me.

[Dave]

Blah, work's no excuse for maths

[Sayonara]

I played too.

 

[edit] wait a sec; work's no excuse for maths?

[Dave]

Nice layout, like the menus thing. Had to do that the other day to solve an awkward layout issue (on a calendar).

 

Blatently maths > *

 

[Sayonara]

Cheers

 

What I find hilarious (but also craptastic) is that I have one (count it, one) stylesheet that works for every browser and non-screen device known to humanity EXCEPT for Internet Explorer, which has to have TWO extra style sheets and some js to make it look non-shit.

 

So as revenge the site displays an IE-only message on the front page... heh heh heh.

 

[/offtopic]

[Dave]

lol

 

I hate IE with all my guts. Really hope it dies soon

[e(ho0n3]

Just some comments on the nomenclature being employed.

 

The differential of a function y = xⁿ for any value of n is n*x^n-1[/sup'].

^{You might want to stick with the word derivative here (i.e. the derivative of a function...) since the word differential is reserved for something else.}

 

^{[math]\frac{dy}{dx}[/math]}

 

^{The first thing to remember is that the "d" is not a variable; it's actually an operator, so you can't simply cancel it from the fraction to give y/x (otherwise things would make no sense). The second thing to notice is the interpretation - spoken aloud it means "the differential (i.e. gradient) of y with respect to x".}

^{"d" isn't really an operator. The operator here is d/dx. Again, the word differential is misused here.}

 

^{I hope my critiques are helpful.}

[Dave]

Fair enough.

 

There's obviously going to be some mistakes in my wording, and I've been misinformed about the operator. But then again I should technically have said "any real value of n". It's unlikely that anyone will really consider the operator side of it.

[budullewraagh]

he's just jealous

 

i, for one, can't wait for the next lesson. cheers!

[e(ho0n3]

And why would I be jealous?

[budullewraagh]

oh come now you didn't notice my connotation? it was in more of a joking manner than a serious one.

[Dave]

Next lesson won't be for a while, since I'm off to Ireland for 2 weeks on Thursday.

 

Sorry guys

[ydoaPs]

dave, will there be a new lesson soon? i just went through the first two and can't wait for a new one, yet i see that your last post was last year. could you start it up again?

[Sayonara]

I have been doing a maths course as part of my current BSc, and the only thing that challenged me so far was validating rearrangements of the limits on the feasible area in a linear regression programming problem. And that was only because it's explained in a craptastic way.

 

So I think I'll be working through these threads again too!

[Dave]

I can start them up again soon if people would like, since I'm on holiday next week

[ydoaPs]

that'ld be great.

[Dave]

So, the next lesson is out (at last)! Closing this thread, all questions should be submitted to the next one.

 

Cheers.