derivatives and integrals (Qs from chemistry class)

[ulrichsk8ter]

I thought i would ask a few questions pertaining to calculus. I was in chemistry a few days ago and my teacher became bored with the lesson. He switched over to calculus which, although confusing, intrigued me. He taught us basic derivatives, the ones with the prime notation thing. To my knowledge, you must move the exponent and multiply it by the coefficient and raise it to the original power you multiplied, if that makes sense. I wanted to clarify this and find out how much more indepth this concept will go in calculus 1 in college. also, he stated that integrals were the opposite of derivatives. Would that make them antiderivatives or are those an entirely different thing. thank you.

 

[galactus]

Re: derivatives and integrals

Yes, calculus will go into derivatives much more in depth; such as, how it's derived and what it actually means

A derivative is a slope at a point.

Actually, when finding the detrivative of something like \(\displaystyle 3x^{2}\), we multiply the coefficient by the exponent and subtract 1 from the exponent.

Therefore, we get 6x. This is one of the simplest cases. It gets much more involved.

And yes, antiderivative is integration. It is used to find the area under a curve. How the two are related is very, very cool.

It's nice you are intrigued by it. I, myself, started out as a comp sci major. Once I took calculus, I switched my major to math.

If you're that interested, peruse the calculus section of this forum and look at the various posts.

 

[ulrichsk8ter]

Re: derivatives and integrals

Oh im very much into math courses this year. since my hon.algebra 2 teacher allowed me to double up and take precal with alg. 2 ive been wanting to learn alot more. i found out i only have to take calc 1 and statistics, but depending on how i do in calc 1 i might fill up my electives with other math.

 

[galactus]

Re: derivatives and integrals

Yes, good idea if you enjoy math. Integration is mostly learned in Calc II and differentiation in Calc I

Them Calc III is about vector calculus. Then you have Doifferential Equations and it goes on and on. An endless amount of things to learn.