Assignment Schedule

 

Guides and Links:

Stewart's Calculus This is the official webpage of our textbook. Have a look a the TEC (Tools for Enriching Calculus) link. There are some nice interactive animations.
How to Ace Calculus How to Ace Calclulus: The Streetwise Guide is witty little book with good information. Who said reading math had to be dull? This link is to the authors website where they have made much of the information available. You can also get you own copy of the book from places such as Amazon.com for example.
Letter to a Calculus Student You are about to "hold Infinity in the palm of your hand"! Are you excited? This is a letter to a Calculus student (i.e. you) about the beauty they are about to uncover in Calculus. This letter is written by Keith Devlin, author of dozens of mathematics books for a general audience.
Calculus.org Calculus.org: Your one-stop-shop for all things calculus. This site contains fully worked out examples, a collection of practice exams from other univeristies, and lots of applets to satisfy your every need. This site is maintained by some well known, and entertaining, mathematical educators. Two of which are the authors of the "How to Ace Calculus" book above. Enjoy!
Academic Skills Academic Skills Workshop: Do you want the secret to success in mathematics? Here are three short videos giving tips for proper study habits. (Scroll down to "Math" and view the 3 problem solving videos.)
Polya's Approach to Problem Solving A summary of Polya's 4-step approach to problem solving. A must read for any mathematics student!!! I briefly outline this approach in the lecture notes accompanying Chapter 6 of Ebersole. This guide contains a one-page expanded version of the 4-steps.
Maple Maple Quickstart: Maple is a very powerful mathematical software package. It is installed on all computers in the labs at SFU. This is a quick demo to get you started.
Sage Sage Quickstart: Sage is also a very powerful mathematical software package. It is open source and hence free. This quickstart quide will help get you started in using Sage. If you would prefer to have the guide in a Sage worksheet format, rather than a pdf, click here to dowload. This file will then need to be uploaded into Sage once you have the program running.
Wolfram|Alpha Wolfram|Alpha: The makers of Mathematica (another very powerful mathematical software package, popular amongst applied mathematicians and engineers) bring us a "google-like" mathematical search engine.

In their own words: "Wolfram|Alpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone. Enter your question or calculation, and Wolfram|Alpha uses its built-in algorithms and a growing collection of data to compute the answer.

Type in your name, it will give you data about how many people in the US share your first name. Type in a function, it will tell you lots of things about it (yes, including it's derivative). This site only launched this year and I put this link here as yet another resource you may find helpful in learning calculus.
Math Girl Your friendly neighborhood mathematical superhero. Watch episodes here.

 

Applets Used in Lectures:

link title related section Description
Blank Sheet A Blank GeoGebra Worksheet This is a blank GeoGebra worksheet that you can play around with. You may find it useful for visualizing some of the mathematics we will cover in this cours. All of the applets below were created in GeoGebra. If you are interested, you can download your own copy of this program for free from the link at the bottom of the next page.
Mapping Diagram Visualizing Functions as a Mapping Diagram 1.1 This applet is to help you visualize a function as a mapping diagram. You can also use this to help you visualize the composition of two functions.
Function Graph Visualizing Functions as Graphs 1.1 A graph of a functions is a visual representation of the pairs (input, output), in the plane. This applet will help you to understand the connection between the graph of a function and a function as and input-output machine.
trig applet Graphs of Sine and Cosine 1.2 An applet illustrating how the graphs of sine and cosine are related to the unit circle.
Transformations Transformations of Functions 1.3 An applet illustrating how transformations affect the graph of a function. Transformations are represented both algebraically and graphically.
Tangent to Parabola Construction of the Tangent to a Parabola 2.1 An applet illustrating how the tangent to a parabola is obtained through successive secant lines.
Graphs with Corners Functions with Corners 2.1 Some examples of graphs with corners which I talked about in lecture. The tangent line to a graph does not exist at a corner.
Algebraic Simplification Algebraic Simplification 2.3 When computing the limit of a function at a point it is sometimes necessary to do some algebraic simplification of the function before you can substitute in the value. What we are actually doing is replacing the function with another function which is equal to it but has a larger domain (i.e. the simplified function has the value x=a in its domain). We can think of this as filling in the hole on the original function. This applet was used in class while discussing this topic.
Squeeze Theorem Example Squeeze Theorem Examples 2.3 The Squeeze Theorem is a very useful theorem which allows you to compute limits of some trickier functions. This applet allows you to explore the Squeeze Theorem visually.
Derivative of sin The Derivative of Sine 3.3 So you know the derivative of sine is cosine, but do you know why? This applet gives some pretty compelling visual evidence to suggest why. Of course, a rigorous argument would rely on applying the definition of derivative.
Motion of a Particle Motion of a Particle in 1-Dimension 3.7 If a particla has negative acceleration then it must be slowing down, right? Nope. Sorry. Try again. This is an extremely common misconception. This applet is intended to address this misconception and help you understand what the sign of the first and second derivative is telling you. The sign of the first derivative indicates the direction of motion, whereas the sign of the second derivatice indicates the direction of the acceleration. A partical is slowing down if it is accelerating in the opposite direction from which it is moving. This means we also have to know its direction of motion to conclude anything about whether it is speeding up or slowing down.
Mean Value Theorem Mean Value Theorem 4.2 An illustration of the Mean Value Theorem. Rolle's Theorem is included as a special case.
Optimization Run and Row Optimization - Rowing and Running 4.7 A visualization of a classical optimization problem.
Lissajous Curves Circle, Ellipses and Lissajous Parametric Curves Applet 10.1 Some of the most basic parametric curves. Here we see that circles, ellipses and Lissajous curves all arise from sine and cosine through parametrizations.
Parametric Curves Parametric Curves Applet 10.1 This applet is to help you visualize how a parametric curve is constructed from two individual functions: one for the x coordinate and one for the y-coordinate.
Polar Curves Polar Curves Applet 10.3 Just a polar curve grapher. Type in your polar equation and investigate the graph.
Cartesian Curve to Polar Curve Polar Curves and Cartesian Graphs 10.5 An applet showing the connection between the Cartesian graph of r=f(θ) and the graph in polar coordinates.