Sources and simplifications
Every reference cited on this site, and every place a figure idealizes the real system.
References§
- (2016). Calculus Volume 1. OpenStax, Rice University. textbook Free, peer-reviewed. Used here: §2.2 The Limit of a Function, §2.5 The Precise Definition of a Limit, §3.1 Defining the Derivative, §3.2 The Derivative as a Function, §3.3 Differentiation Rules, §3.6 The Chain Rule, §4.1 Related Rates, §5.1 Approximating Areas, §5.2 The Definite Integral, §5.3 The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. (Limits)
- (1991). Models of limit held by college calculus students. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education 22(3), 219–236. doi:10.2307/749075. primary (Limits)
- (1981). Concept image and concept definition in mathematics with particular reference to limits and continuity. Educational Studies in Mathematics 12, 151–169. doi:10.1007/BF00305619. primary (Limits)
- . George Berkeley (biography). MacTutor History of Mathematics, University of St Andrews. reference (Limits)
- (1978). The origins of Cauchy’s theory of the derivative. Historia Mathematica 5, 379–409. doi:10.1016/0315-0860(78)90208-2. scholarship (Limits)
- (1983). Who gave you the epsilon? Cauchy and the origins of rigorous calculus. The American Mathematical Monthly 90(3), 185–194. doi:10.1080/00029890.1983.11971185. scholarship (Limits)
- . Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass (biography). MacTutor History of Mathematics, University of St Andrews. reference (Limits)
- (2008). Student perspectives on the relationship between a curve and its tangent in the transition from Euclidean geometry to analysis. Research in Mathematics Education 10(1), 53–70. doi:10.1080/14794800801916457. primary (The derivative)
- . Isaac Newton (biography). MacTutor History of Mathematics, University of St Andrews. reference (The derivative)
- . Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (biography). MacTutor History of Mathematics, University of St Andrews. reference (The derivative)
- (2002). Math 128a lecture notes: numerical differentiation. University of California, Berkeley. institutional (The derivative)
- (1982). Accurate computation of F′(x) and F′(x)F″(x). Advances in Engineering Software 4(2), 75–76. doi:10.1016/S0141-1195(82)80057-0. primary (The derivative)
- (1983). Students’ understanding of differentiation. Educational Studies in Mathematics 14, 235–250. doi:10.1007/BF00410540. primary (The derivative)
- . Machine and Mechanism Theory, Lesson 8: gear trains. University of Almería. institutional (The chain rule)
- (1997). Constructing a schema: the case of the chain rule. Journal of Mathematical Behavior 16(4), 345–364. doi:10.1016/S0732-3123(97)90012-2. primary (The chain rule)
- (2016). Calculus Volume 3, §4.5 The Chain Rule. OpenStax, Rice University. textbook (The chain rule)
- (1983). Students’ understanding of integration. Educational Studies in Mathematics 14, 1–18. doi:10.1007/BF00704699. primary (Riemann sums)
- (2011). Students’ understanding and application of the area under the curve concept in physics problems. Physical Review Special Topics: Physics Education Research 7, 010112. doi:10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.7.010112. primary (Riemann sums)
- (2016). Calculus Volume 2. OpenStax, Rice University. textbook §3.6 Numerical Integration: midpoint, trapezoidal and Simpson’s rules and their error bounds. (Riemann sums)
- (1996). The rise of calculus. MacTutor History of Mathematics, University of St Andrews. reference (Riemann sums)
- (1897). The Works of Archimedes (Quadrature of the Parabola, Propositions 17 and 24). Cambridge University Press. primary (Riemann sums)
- (1969). Notes on the adaptive Simpson quadrature routine. Journal of the ACM 16(3), 483–495. doi:10.1145/321526.321537. primary (Riemann sums)
- (2006). Liouville’s Theorem on Integration in Terms of Elementary Functions (Corollary 5.4). Kolchin Seminar on Differential Algebra, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. reference Lecture notes giving Rosenlicht’s algebraic proof (Amer. Math. Monthly 79 (1972) 963–972) of Liouville’s 1835 theorem; Corollary 5.4 shows e^(x²) has no elementary primitive, and the same argument (a′ − 2ax = 1 has no rational solution a) covers e^(−x²). (Riemann sums)
- (1994). Images of rate and operational understanding of the fundamental theorem of calculus. Educational Studies in Mathematics 26, 229–274. doi:10.1007/BF01273664. primary (The fundamental theorem)
- (2008). Calculus, 4th edition (Chapter 5, Limits; Chapter 12, Inverse Functions; Chapter 18, The Logarithm and Exponential Functions). Publish or Perish. ISBN 978-0-914098-91-1. textbook (The epsilon-delta definition of a limit)
- (1967). Calculus, Volume 1, 2nd edition (Chapter 1, the integral as a limit of step-function sums; Chapter 6, the logarithm, the exponential and the inverse trigonometric functions). John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-00005-1. textbook (Derivative of ln x)
Simplifications§
- The figure finds δ by sampling the function at a few thousand points near a and refining the first point that escapes the band.
- The calculator decides limits numerically. It extrapolates samples of f on each side of a to distance zero (Richardson extrapolation) and checks the result against direct samples.
- The calculator applies the exact differentiation rules to the formula you type and evaluates the result at your point in double precision; it does not print the formula for f′.
- The figure measures each stretch with a finite interval, so its stretch factors are average rates over that interval.
- The calculator integrates numerically, by adaptive Simpson quadrature with a final Richardson correction, to a target accuracy of about 10−10.
- The strip argument and both figures assume f is continuous, and the figures compute the areas numerically.
- The figure finds δ by sampling the function at a few thousand points near a and refining the first failure by bisection.
- The calculator applies the standard differentiation rules, including (ln u)′ = u′/u, to the formula you type and evaluates the result at your point, then checks it against difference quotients.
- The figures plot tan x by sampling it at screen resolution and breaking the line where consecutive samples jump by most of the plot height.
- The figure and the calculator work with the principal branches: arcsin and arctan return angles in [−π/2, π/2], arccos in [0, π].
- The calculator evaluates f in double-precision arithmetic, about 16 significant digits, and its reference integral is a numerical estimate with its own small error.
- The reference value the calculator compares against comes from adaptive Simpson quadrature, itself a numerical method, accurate to about 10−10 for smooth functions.