Question

Is differential calculus all about finding the derivative of a function? Or is there more to it?

Answer 1

I was just looking over some notes and Khan Academy on Differential calculus (That I will do next year) and saw its mostly about finding derivatives. Is that mainly it? Or is there more to it?

Answer 2

It's about finding derivatives and their applications.

Answer 3

reminds me of the question
is music all about mixing frequencies of sound waves or is there more to it :D

Answer 4

Haha, nice.

Answer 5

but yeah the main problem of differential calculus is finding the slope of tangent line to a curve at a certain point

Answer 6

;)

So, is it mainly about finding derivatives of functions, then using that for different uses? Like, finding the speed of an object at a particular time, given a function that relates both the speed of the object and the time taken?

Answer 7

Would you say that, @ganeshie8 @wio?

Answer 8

Yeah

Answer 9

Oh, K then. Thanks alot :) I was wondering what it was about, since most online website make it seem really complicated

Answer 10

do you have any favorite example/problem in differential calculus ?

Answer 11

Nah, haven't done it yet. All I know is that we are doing it next year, so I looked on Khan Academy to see what it was about. The majority talks about derivatives so far ;)

Answer 12

Although I heard its also about instantaneous rate of change? How does that work?

Answer 13

Anybody know?

Answer 14

"An Instantaneous rate of change is the rate of change at one given moment,and it is equal to the value of derivative at that particular point."

Answer 15

\[\frac{\Delta y}{\Delta x}\]as \(\Delta x\to 0\).

Answer 16

Oh, thanks @geerky42 :)

Answer 17

are you familiar with kinematics problems ? like projectiles etc..

Answer 18

No @ganeshie8

Answer 19

@ganeshie8, you were typing something?

Answer 20

Okay, try this abstract example problem :



Using your pre-calculus knowledge, can you find the "average" rate of change of y between x=1 and x=4 ?