ABOUT THIS COURSE

Calculus was invented by Newton in the late 1600's in his efforts to find a mathematical language suitable to formulate his famous laws of motion. A parallel discovery of the same ideas was made by Leibnitz. The roots of calculus, however, go all the way back to Archimedes and other Greek mathematicians.

There two major branches of Calculus, differential and integral calculus.  Differential Calculus is the study of rates of change. The diversity of the  variables involved is basically unbounded.  For example, we may have  distance, velocity and time,  profit and capital input, temperature and pressure,  population and time, rate of growth of rumors or of epidemics.

Integral calculus begins with the study of areas bounded by curves.  The subject becomes particularly interesting after one gains understanding of its relationship to differential calculus as crystallized by the Fundamental Theorem.

The applications of integral are even more diverse than those of differential calculus. They include volume and surface area  of solids, work and energy, fluid pressure, consumer's surplus, means and deviations of probability distributions,

and many more.

This course is the result of a coordinated effort to infuse technology into the undergraduate  curriculum. This partially NSF funded project  called MCP (Math Chemistry & Physics) now enters its third year.

The philosophy of this course is based on our sincere belief that students learn best when given an opportunity to relate the fundamental concepts they learn to real life problems. The emphasis of the course is on problem solving and modeling. Naturally, this presupposes a solid theoretical foundation. the goals of the project are

                1. Better understanding of the ideas presented.

                2. Transferability.

                3. Retention

                4. Stimulating the curiosity for learning.

                5. Modeling

To foster better understanding of calculus, all fundamental ideas will be presented graphically, numerically and analytically. For  graphing and numerical computations, you will have access to fast desktop computers

loaded with the professional versions of MathCad and Excel. We will also perform actual experiments in the classroom using electronic data acquisition  to analyze the results.

By transferability, we mean the ability of students to recognize situations in which the concepts learned in one discipline arise in the study of another.  Calculus is a wonderful subject in this regard; there is basically no academic subject in which one does not fine interesting applications of Calculus. The pedagogical techniques used in this Calculus course are paralleled in Chemistry and Physics courses with the MCP label. To get maximum benefit,  it is therefore desirable to enroll in other MCP courses.

You may find that the pedagogical techniques used in this course differ greatly from other math courses you may have taken. We will use a considerable amount of multimedia technology in the presentations -- CD  ROM's, laser disks,

color projection panels and electronic blackboards. The expectations on part of the students will also be different. We want you to learn to read,  speak, and write mathematics. There is a writing component in this course in the form of lab reports. With the use of  sophisticated word processors and laser printers, you will be able to produce professional looking reports which should be a source of pride.

There is no question that being in this course entails a greater time commitment than  the traditional calculus course.

The benefits, however are well worth the efforts.  The lab and writing components will give the instructor the opportunity to grade students on areas which are not assessed in traditional courses.  The exposure to computers and

electronic data acquisition will empower the student in preparation for jobs in our rapidly evolving technological society.

Most important, you should find that it is fun to learn calculus this way, and you will get a deeper understanding of this marvelous subject.