What is Calculus?

While many people believe that calculus is supposed to be a hard math course,
most don't have any idea of what it is about. The good news is that if you
remember your algebra and are reasonably good at it then calculus is not nearly
as difficult as its reputation supposes. This article attempts to explain just what
calculus is about--where it came from and why it is important.
First, a little history leading up to the discovery of calculus, or its creation,
depending on your philosophy.
The word "calculus" comes from "rock", and also means a stone formed in a
body. People in ancient times did arithmetic with piles of stones, so a particular
method of computation in mathematics came to be known as calculus.
Arithmetic and geometry are the two branches of mathematics originating in
ancient times. Mathematicians attempted to do algebra in those days but lacked
the language of algebra, namely the symbols we take for granted such as +, -, X,
and =. Much of the world, including Europe, also lacked an efficient
numbering system such as that developed in the Hindu and Arabic cultures. (Try
long division, for example, using Roman numerals.) Algebra as a branch of
mathematics can be said to date to around 825 A.D. when a Persian, al-
Khwarizmi, wrote the earliest known algebra text. (The word "algebra" comes
from a Persian word in the title, "al'jabr", which means "to restore". The English
term for a systematic mathematical method, algorithm, was derived from al-
Khwarizmi's name by way of a Latin translation.)
For over seven hundred years algebra and geometry coexisted but were not well
linked. Geometry describes the physical nature of our world while algebra is a
sophisticated tool for mathematical analysis. Due to the Greek influence on
Persian (or Islamic) mathematics geometry was successfully used to verify some
of their algebraic methods, but there was no known way to harness the analytical
power of algebra to analyze geometry. In the late 1500's the French philosopher
and mathematician, Rene Descartes, had a profound breakthrough when he
realized he could describe position on a plane using a pair of numbers associated
with a horizontal axis and a vertical axis. By describing, say, the horizontal
measurement with x's and the vertical measurement with y's, Descartes was able
to give geometric objects such as lines and circles representation as algebraic
equations. This seminal construction of what we call graphs is, arguably, the
cornerstone without which our modern technology would not be possible.
Descartes thus united the analytical power of algebra with the descriptive power
of geometry into a branch of mathematics he called analytic geometry. This term
is sometimes seen in textbooks with titles such as "Calculus with Analytic
Geometry."
Descartes, as philosopher, is also the author of the famous line, "Cogito, ergo
sum," or, "I think, therefore I am." He was attempting to settle an argument about
whether we exist independently of God's imagination.
The next major breakthrough in mathematics was the discovery (or creation) of
calculus around the 1670's. Sir Isaac Newton of England, and a German,
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, deserve equal credit for independently coming up
with calculus. Each accused the other of plagiarism for the rest of their lives, but
for what it's worth, the world largely adopted Leibnitz's calculus symbols.
Calculus did allow Newton to establish physics principles which remained
uncontested until the year 1900 and which in our ordinary scale world still
suffice to explain physics to excellent accuracy.
Calculus was developed out of a need to understand continuously changing
quantities. Newton, for example, was trying to understand the effect of gravity
which causes falling objects to constantly accelerate. The speed of an object
increases constantly every split second as it falls. How can one, for example,
determine the speed of a falling object at a frozen instant in time, such as its
speed when it strikes the ground? No mathematics prior to Newton and Leibnitz's
time could answer such a question, which appeared to amount to the
impossibility of dividing zero by zero. The solution to this type of issue came to
be known as the derivative. Derivatives are slopes of particular lines called
tangent lines, and the reader may recall that slope of a line is a concept from
Descartes' graphing.
Differential calculus is one side of calculus, the part concerned with continuous
change and its applications. By understanding derivatives the student has at his or
her disposal a very powerful tool for understanding the behavior of mathematical
functions. Importantly, this allows us to optimize functions, which means to find
their maximum or minimum values, as well as to determine other valuable
qualities describing functions. Real-world applications are endless, but some
examples are maximizing profit, minimizing stress, maximizing efficiency,
minimizing cost, finding the point of diminishing returns, and determining
velocity and acceleration.
The other primary side of calculus is integral calculus. Integration is a process
which, simplistically, resembles the reverse of differentiation. This amounts to
efficiently adding infinitely many infinitely small numbers. This allows us, in
theory, to find the area of any planar geometric shape, or the volume of any
geometric solid. But the applications of integration, like differentiation, are also
quite extensive.
Until the mid-1800's mathematicians were content to use calculus-style
computations under the heuristic evidence that they seemed to work very well.
This was a fragile house of cards increasingly based on the faith that what they
saw would always work. Largely under the influence of Karl Friederich Gauss
(1777 - 1855) the mathematical world gradually returned to the ancient Greek
ideal of mathematical proof by logic found in their [Euclidean] geometry. Gauss'
student, Bernhard Riemann (1826 - 1866), and some of his contemporaries
established a rigorous logical foundation for calculus now known as real
analysis. Their definitions and theorems greatly influenced the language and
teaching of calculus today.
It was only through calculus and the rigorous treatment it received in the 19th
century that mankind could really begin to grasp the difficult concepts of infinity
and infinitesimal. Calculus also completes the link of algebra and geometry by
providing powerful analytical tools that allow us to understand algebra functions
through their related geometry.
We now realize that great thinkers in ancient times ran into calculus concepts.
Archimedes used calculus thinking, for example, to establish the area of a circle
and the volume of a sphere, borrowing his methods of exhaustion--essentially
limits--from Eudoxus of Cnidus. Zeno of Elea proposed four famous paradoxes
which caused Aristotle, centuries later, to grapple with calculus ideas in his failed
attempt to resolve them.
Calculus, by tradition, is usually a one-year course (four quarters or three
semesters). The first half is concerned with learning and applying the techniques
of differentiation and integration. The second half is concerned with further
applications, using both sides of calculus, to vectors, infinite sums, differential
equations and a few other topics. The last term of calculus is sometimes known
as multivariate calculus, which is an application of calculus to three or more
dimensions.
Calculus provides the foundation to physics, engineering, and many higher math
courses. It is also important to chemistry, astronomy, economics and statistics.
Medical schools and pharmacy schools use it as a screening tool to weed out
weaker aspirants under the assumption that people who are unwilling or unable to
handle the rigors of calculus stand little chance of surviving the hard work of
studying medicine or pharmacology.
There are three main facets to being a successful calculus student:
--You must be good at algebra skills. It is not enough to have passed algebra, you
must also remember what you learned! If you have to relearn algebra while
learning calculus then the burden can overwhelm.
--Memorization of computational patterns is not enough. Some people can get by
in algebra by memorization without understanding. In calculus it is quite
necessary to pay attention and learn the concepts in order to apply them. This is
learning at a mature level.
--You must be dedicated to study. Don't skip any classes except for the most dire
reasons. Take notes. Above all, practice lots of problems, without which those
concepts will not be reinforced and learned.
Students who enjoy intellectual stimulation and the power of abstract thinking
tend to enjoy the beauty of calculus the most, but there is much to appreciate for
those who are looking for powerful tools which which to understand and create
in the physical world.
Finally, a good reason to take calculus is that you will be more competitive and
have more career opportunities. Many people avoid demanding challenges; those
willing to face them head on tend to go much further in life.