The Never Ending Spiral of Mathematics

As someone who is currently in AP Calculus BC, I completely detest the subject and wish it was never invented. It’s so bad that I wouldn’t even wish it on my worst enemy. Regardless, when your English teacher asks you to rewrite a page of any textbook in informal language, you’ll also find yourself turning to math. Here is a short excerpt (perhaps the only one I understand) from said Calculus textbook.

(Calculus: Seventh Edition, Stewart)

 

Now here’s my ‘informal version’:

After that long chapter of how limits happen, let’s talk about ways to solve them, starting with graphing and data tables. The graph in Figure 1 is referenced to as f(x) and its equation is f(x)=x^2-x+2. The data table shows the values that the equation gives for numbers close to 2 – ie. 2.001, 3.001, and 1.999. It is important to note that the equation was never set to 2. This is because, by definition, a limit is a number that is approached from both sides of a graph. So, by observing the output values of input numbers around 2, we can draw a conclusion of what the limit might be. Back to the table, we can see that the number approached is 4. With this information, we can draw the conclusion that the limit as x approaches 2 is 4. Another way to understand it is with the use of variables. We can assume that we are trying to find the limit, L at a number A. So, it can be said that the limit as x values approach A, from both the positive and negative sides, is L.


That was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.


Signing off for now,

Reality Sucks

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 1, 2023 at 12:58 PM

    AP Calc is bad. But I really like how you used humor to make the post more relatable and entertaining to read.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Katharina ZakOctober 1, 2023 at 3:37 PM

    I really enjoyed how you included like a little personal not at the beginning of your post, i found that funny and entertaining. The perhaps the only part i understand, was so real, i really felt that struggle . And even though I don’t really understand the math part of your blog post because i am not in Calc this year, i enjoyed the simple language that you used, that made ever so slight more understandable.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousOctober 1, 2023 at 7:01 PM

    Wow! Got a whole new perspective on math, for a second it seemed fun. Calc is bad but wow it made it fun.

    ReplyDelete

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