October 7, 2017: Topics to be discussed.

I. INTRODUCTION TO CALCULUS (LIMITS)

a. Rates of Change and Tangent Lines

i. Tangent Lines

A tangent line to the function f(x) at the point x = a is a line that just
touches the graph of the function at the point in question and is
parallel (in some way) to the graph at that point.

In this graph the line is a tangent line at the indicated point because it
just touches the graph at that point and is also parallel to the graph at
that point. Likewise, at the second point shown, the line does just touch
the graph at that point, but it is not parallel to the graph at that point
and so its not a tangent line to the graph at that point.

At the second point shown (the point where the line isnt a tangent line)
we will sometimes call the line a secant line.

Example: Find the tangent line to f ( x) 15 2 x 2 at x 1 .

ii. Rates of Change

The instantaneous rate of change or sometimes just rate of

change of f(x) at x = a is how fast f(x) is changing at point x = a.

To compute the average rate of change of f(x) at x = a, all we need to

do is to choose another point, say x, and then the average rate of
change will be:

change in f ( x)
A.R.C
change in x
f ( x) f (a)

xa
 Example: Suppose that the amount of air in a balloon after t hours is
given by

V (t ) t 3 6t 2 35

Estimate the instantaneous rate of change of the volume

after 5 hours.

Velocity Problem

In the velocity problem we are given a position function of an object,

f(t), that gives the position of an object at time t. Then to compute the
instantaneous velocity of the object we just need to recall that the
velocity is nothing more than the rate at which the position is
changing.

To estimate the instantaneous velocity, we would first compute the

average velocity:

change in position
. .
AV
time traveled
f (t ) f (a )

t a

and then take values of t closer and closer to t = a and use these
values to estimate the instantaneous velocity.

b. The Limit

The process called taking a limit is to choose values of x that got closer and
closer to a and plug it into the function after which, we looked at the function
values and see to what values were approaching as x got closer and closer to x
= a and we use this to guess the value at x = a.

The limit notation for the two problems from the last section is,

2 2 x2 t 3 6t 2 25
lim 4 lim 15
x 1 x 1 t 5 t 5

using this notation, we will note that we always give the function that were
working with and we also give the value of x (or t) that we are moving in
towards.

The Limit

We say that the limit of f ( x ) is L as x approaches a and write this as

 lim f ( x) L
xa

provided we can make f ( x ) as close to L as we want for all x sufficiently

close to a , from both sides, without actually letting x be a .

Suppose that we want to make f ( x ) no more than 0.001 away from L .

f ( x) L 0.001 if f ( x) is larger than L

L f ( x) 0.001 if f ( x) is smaller than L

Example: Estimate the value of the following limit:

x 2 4 x 12
lim
x 2 x2 2 x

Limits are asking what the function is doing around x a and are not
concerned with what the function is actually doing at x a . This is a good
thing as many of the functions that well be looking at wont even exist at x a
as we saw in our last example.

Example: Estimate the value of the following limit:

x 2 4 x 12
if x 2
lim g ( x) where, g ( x ) x 2 2 x
x2
6 if x 2

c. One-Sided Limits
d. Limit Properties
e. Computing Limits
f. Infinite Limits
g. Limits At Infinity
h. Continuity
i. The Definition of the Limit

II. DERIVATIVES

a. Introduction
b. The Definition of the Derivative
c. Interpretations of the Derivative
d. Differentiation Formulas
e. Product and Quotient Rule
f. Derivatives of Trig Functions
g. Derivatives of Exponential and Logarithm Functions
h. Derivatives of Inverse Trig Functions
 i. Derivatives of Hyperbolic Functions
j. Chain Rule
k. Implicit Differentiation
l. Related Rates
m. Higher Order Derivatives
n. Logarithmic Differentiation

III. APPLICATIONS OF DERIVATIVES

a. Introduction
b. Rates of Change
c. Critical Points
d. Minimum and Maximum Values
e. Finding Absolute Extrema
f. The Shape of a Graph
g. The Mean Value Theorem
h. Optimization
i. Indeterminate Forms and LHospitals Rule
j. Linear Approximations
k. Differentials
l. Newtons Method
m. Business Applications