MATH 191, Sections 1 and 3: Calculus I

Continuing a long-standing tradition, here's a bad joke to start things off:

Q. What did 0 say to 8?
A. "Nice belt!"

Assorted class resources for your enjoyment:

Syllabus and course description
Course schedule
Homework assignments, by date.
Here is a stylesheet that might give you some idea as to what I look for in high-quality mathematical writing.
Here is a link to the Educo website, which you will use to complete your review test at the beginning of the semester.
Here are the roles on which you will be working for the Newton v. Leibniz project:
- Section 1
- Section 3
And here are the groups in which you will work for the Dumpster D(er)iving project:
- Section 1
- Section 3

Practice Exams:

Day-by-day goings-on:

Monday, August 17th. First day of class! We will talk a bit about the way course will be organized, and then brainstorm topics we would like to review as a class before diving into "new" concepts and computations.
Wednesday, August 19th. Your turn now: two-by-two you will have a chance to say a bit about the review topics you were asked to brush up on. Please come prepared to say a few words to your friends about these ideas!
Thursday, August 20th. If needed we will continue our review of the basic concepts of calculus, as begun on Wednesday. We may have time to begin our more "formal" review together, using this worksheet, discussing topics from Sections 1.1 and 1.2 of your text.
Friday, August 21st. We will work in groups on the worksheet linked to in the previous entry.
Monday, August 24th. We will continue working together, on a new handout, concerning the various sorts of functions we will encounter, the topic of Section 1.3 of your text.
Wednesday, August 26th. We wrap up the handout in the previous entry.
Thursday, August 27th. Our next handout details trig functions, the topic of Section 1.4 of your text. Time permitting we may even start talking about inverse functions, the topic of Section 1.5 of your text.
Friday, August 28th. We will finish up talking about inverse functions (see the previous entry for the Section 1.5 handout) and begin talking about exponential functions and logarithms, the topic of Section 1.6 of your text.
Monday, August 31st. We wrap up our discussion of exponents and logarithms. Woo hoo!
Wednesday, September 2nd. We finally begin our study of calculus itself, with a discussion of rates of change, the topic of Section 2.1 of your text.
Thursday, September 3rd. We continue our introduction to calculus proper with a discussion of limits, the topic of Section 2.2 of your text. I have written a Mathematica notebook, SecantsTangents.nb which you may wish to use in the Math Lab in order to help you visualize how secant lines can be used to approximate tangent lines.
Friday, September 4th. We continue talking about limits, finishing off the notes from Section 2.2 above.
Monday, September 7th. Labor Day: no class!
Wednesday, September 9th. We pick up a few basic limit laws, the topic of Section 2.3 of your text. We may even begin talking about continuity, the topic of Section 2.4.
Thursday, September 10th. We will continue (ha ha, get it? Continue?) talking about continuity; see the previous entry for the notes. We will probably get a start on the algebra of limits, the topic of Section 2.5.
Friday, September 11th. We wrap up our discussion of the algebra of limits and get a start on some tricky trig limits, the topic of Section 2.6 of your text.
Monday, September 14th. We finish discussion the tricky trig limits we began talking about on Friday. (See the previous entry for the notes.)
Wednesday, September 16th. Nothing new: we will spend the day reviewing for the test tomorrow, with the following worksheets:
- Exam 1 review sheet 1
- Exam 1 review sheet 2
- Exam 1 review sheet 3
Thursday, September 17th. Exam 1, dealing with Sections 1.1 through 1.6 and 2.1 through 2.6.
Friday, September 18th. We will spend a little bit of time on the Intermediate Value Theorem, the topic of Section 2.7 of your text.
Monday, September 21st. Now we begin our study of derivatives, the topic of Section 3.1 of your text.
Wednesday, September 23rd. We continue our discussion of derivatives, now viewing them as functions, as in Section 3.2 of your text. (This is the first of two sets of notes I will post on this section.)
Thursday, September 24th. Today is the day for the pretrial discovery for the Newton v. Leibniz trial. I would like all teams to come ready with questions to ask one another as you prepare your arguments.
Friday, September 25th. We continue our romp through Section 3.2, discussing the graphs of derivatives and the derivatives of exponential functions. Woo hoo!
Monday, September 28th. We continue on the same set of notes, finishing our discussion of Section 3.2; see the previous entry.
Wednesday, September 30th. After a quiz, we finish the last example from Section 3.2 and begin talking about the Product and Quotient Rules, the topic of Section 3.3 of your text.
Thursday, October 1st. The we have all been waiting for is here! Newton v. Leibniz!
Friday, October 2nd. We will continue talking about the Product and Quotient Rules. See the entry for Wednesday for the handout.
Monday, October 5th. We skip over a couple of sections and begin talking about derivatives of trig functions, the topic of Section 3.6 of your text.
Wednesday, October 7th. We will continue talking about trig derivatives, and get a start on the Chain Rule, the topic of Section 3.7 of your text.
Thursday, October 8th. After a quiz, we talk some more about the Chain Rule. (See the previous entry for notes.)
Friday, October 9th. Implicit differentiation, the topic of Section 3.8 of your text, is the name of the game.
Monday, October 12th. Fall Break: no class!
Wednesday, October 14th. We return, to begin work on derivatives of inverse functions, the topic (in one way or another) of both Section 3.9 and Section 3.10 of your text.
Thursday, October 15th. More on the derivatives of inverses and logarithmic functions. See the previous entry for notes.
Friday, October 16th. We begin looking at related rates of change, the topic of Section 3.11 of your text.
Monday, October 19th. More related rates! See the previous entry for the notes.
Wednesday, October 21st. We will wrap up related rates and spend some time reviewing for the exam on Thursday. Here is a review sheet for Exam 2, from which we will work.
Thursday, October 22nd. Exam 2, dealing with Sections 3.1-3.3 and 3.6-3.11.
Friday, October 23rd. No class! I will be out of town. We will pick up on Monday with Section 3.5.
Monday, October 26th. We pick up, as promised, with higher derivatives, the topic of Section 3.5 of your text.
Wednesday, October 28th. After concluding the handout from Monday, we will spend the rest of class working on various applications of calculus and derivatives, contained in the following worksheets:
- Electrical circuits
- Population dynamics
- Terminal velocity
Thursday, October 29th. We will continue with the worksheets we began on Wednesday. Some of you may be called upon to present your work!
Friday, October 30th. On to Chapter 4, concerning applications of the derivative! We begin talking about linearization, the topic of Section 4.1 of your text.
Monday, November 2nd. We finish up Section 4.1 and begin talking about extreme values, the topic of Section 4.2 of your text. Fun stuff!
Wednesday, November 4th. We continue with the handout from Monday, on extreme values.
Thursday, November 5th. We will be working on the computers today, on the Mathematica notebook IntroPlotAndD, which will provide you with a basic understanding of using the software to plot graphs and find critical points.
Friday, November 6th. We begin talking about the Mean Value Theorem and its consequences, the topic of Section 4.3 of your text.
Monday, November 9th. More on the MVT! See the notes from the previous entry.
Wednesday, November 25th and Friday, November 27th. Thanksgiving Break: no class!
Friday, December 4th. Last day of class!