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Math SL- Calculus


Guest valem

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Guest valem

Hey guys!!
first of all i have to say i never had any major problems with math BUT im seriosly struggeling with claculus! honsetly i don't know why... i guess i don't understand the need of it and how i can apply it in general :P ! can someone explain the basics of calculus to me? :D

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  • 4 weeks later...

It became easier to understand once someone told me that calculus is the study of change. Real-world applications are focused heavily in physics, where rates of change (such as velocity and acceleration) are important.

Say a physicist had a moving object that's position could be measured with an equation that he derived from plotting the position at various times. If the scientist wanted to know the velocity at a certain time, all he would have to do is take the derivative of that position equation, since velocity is the rate of change of position. If he wanted the acceleration at a certain time, all he would have to do is find the derivative of the velocity, which is the second derivative of the position, since acceleration is the rate of change of velocity, or the rate of the rate of change of position if that helps.

Now say that the scientist had the equation for velocity and wanted to find the position, for some reason. As you can see, we need to do the opposite of the derivative, which is integration.

For me atleast, I prefer to do math that has a real world application. Up until calculus I found math boring because there was no apparent use for it.

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