Recent content by ShinyRedCar

I found this to be quite reasonable after reading chapter 2 "On Different Degrees of Smallness". What did you think of the chapter? I believe what Thompson was after was putting the beauty of calculus back into calculus. The technical details can sometimes rob students of any enthusiasm for...

That is a great one!

I've been teaching out of the Larson text for 17 years (started with the alternate 4th edition through to the 8th edition and now the early-trans 4th edition). I have to say that whenever I start thinking of changing the text, I never find another that has the quality of exercises as Larson...

I would advise you to resist cook-book ways of solving problems. That's not what calculus is about. Students typically struggle with word-problems and that's what most optimization problems are. Anyone can find derivatives...after while it's not even interesting. What you can DO with...

I think this is mostly true which is why we have the definition of "differentials" that appear in current calculus textbooks. Be that as it may, engineers and physicists generally do not use them in that very limited fashion. They use them the way that you've been taught. It is very unfortunate...

I'm not so sure there is an answer to that question. I think there is really no "method" for coming up with such a clever choice for an expression of 1 but that it was just that...a very clever choice that happens to work!