The Six Pillars of Calculus
A Road Map
Calculus
is generally viewed as a difficult subject, with hundreds of
formulas to memorize and many applications to the real world. However,
almost all of calculus boils down to six basic ideas, together with
one precalculus idea. If you really understand these ideas, the
formulas will come easily. If you don't understand these ideas, the
formulas won't make any sense. We'll develop some of the ideas
slowly. In M408K and M408N we cover Pillars 1-5. M408L and M408S start
with Pillar 5 and run with it, and then go back to Pillar 1 for
sequences and series, before finishing with Pillar 6 for partial
derivatives and multiple integrals. M408M is all about Pillar
6. Before we get bogged down in the details, let's see what the
pillars actually are.
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