Math teachers out there may appreciate this misconception I've been wrestling with for the past few days: http://t.co/Cl0Nr3oUSN
— Jared Cosulich (@jaredcosulich) January 9, 2014
It turns out Impossible Learning is a just-started-last-month blog where Jared is trying to learn Calculus and post about his struggles. It’s terrific and you should read it. See him ask the perennial question When Will I Use This?
And I immediately found myself saying “come on, when am I ever going to have to find the limit of this random equation”.
I felt like I was back in High School again.
But seriously, why is this one of the first things I’m directed to learn when I want to know more about Calculus? Why is it so hard for me to find some practical applications of this material? I know there is value in understanding the abstract math, but I’d like to balance that with at least some understanding of how this works practically…
I don’t think this actually counts as a proof, but it definitely made the “Power Rule” click for me a bit more. Basically it’s saying that the derivative of a square (x²) is two lines (2x) and the derivative of a cube (x³) is three squares (3x²).
So for a square to get a tiny bit bigger you need to add on two lines (one to the top and one to a side). Similarly for a cube to get a tiny bit bigger you need to add a square to three sides (e.g. top, right, and front).