Limits and infinitesimals

Main articles: Limit of a function and Infinitesimal

Calculus is usually developed by working with very small quantities. Historically,
the first method of doing so was by infinitesimals. These are objects which can be
treated like real numbers but which are, in some sense, "infinitely small". For
example, an infinitesimal number could be greater than 0, but less than any number
in the sequence 1, 1/2, 1/3, ... and thus less than any positive real number. From
this point of view, calculus is a collection of techniques for manipulating
infinitesimals. The symbols
d
x
{\displaystyle dx} and
d
y
{\displaystyle dy} were taken to be infinitesimal, and the derivative
d
y
/
d
x
{\displaystyle dy/dx} was their ratio.[38]

The infinitesimal approach fell out of favor in the 19th century because it was
difficult to make the notion of an infinitesimal precise. In the late 19th century,
infinitesimals were replaced within academia by the epsilon, delta approach to
limits. Limits describe the behavior of a function at a certain input in terms of
its values at nearby inputs. They capture small-scale behavior using the intrinsic
structure of the real number system (as a metric space with the least-upper-bound
property). In this treatment, calculus is a collection of techniques for
manipulating certain limits. Infinitesimals get replaced by sequences of smaller
and smaller numbers, and the infinitely small behavior of a function is found by
taking the limiting behavior for these sequences. Limits were thought to provide a
more rigorous foundation for calculus, and for this reason, they became the
standard approach during the 20th century. However, the infinitesimal concept was
revived in the 20th century with the introduction of non-standard analysis and
smooth infinitesimal analysis, which provided solid foundations for the
manipulation of infinitesimals.[38]

Differential calculus
Main article: Differential calculus

Tangent line at (x0, f(x0)). The derivative f′(x) of a curve at a point is the
slope (rise over run) of the line tangent to that curve at that point.
Differential calculus is the study of the definition, properties, and applications
of the derivative of a function. The process of finding the derivative is called
differentiation. Given a function and a point in the domain, the derivative at that
point is a way of encoding the small-scale behavior of the function near that
point. By finding the derivative of a function at every point in its domain, it is
possible to produce a new function, called the derivative function or just the
derivative of the original function. In formal terms, the derivative is a linear
operator which takes a function as its input and produces a second function as its
output. This is more abstract than many of the processes studied in elementary
algebra, where functions usually input a number and output another number. For
example, if the doubling function is given the input three, then it outputs six,
and if the squaring function is given the input three, then it outputs nine. The
derivative, however, can take the squaring function as an input. This means that
the derivative takes all the information of the squaring function—such as that two
is sent to four, three is sent to nine, four is sent to sixteen, and so on—and uses
this information to produce another function. The function produced by
differentiating the squaring function turns out to be the doubling function.[32]:
32

In more explicit terms the "doubling function" may be denoted by g(x) = 2x and the
"squaring function" by f(x) = x2. The "derivative" now takes the function f(x),
defined by the expression "x2", as an input, that is all the information—such as
that two is sent to four, three is sent to nine, four is sent to sixteen, and so on
—and uses this information to output another function, the function g(x) = 2x, as
will turn out.

In Lagrange's notation, the symbol for a derivative is an apostrophe-like mark

called a prime. Thus, the derivative of a function called f is denoted by f′,
pronounced "f prime" or "f dash". For instance, if f(x) = x2 is the squaring
function, then f′(x) = 2x is its derivative (the doubling function g from above).

If the input of the function represents time, then the derivative represents change
concerning time. For example, if f is a function that takes time as input and gives
the position of a ball at that time as output, then the derivative of f is how the
position is changing in time, that is, it is the velocity of the ball.[32]: 18–20

If a function is linear (that is if the graph of the function is a straight line),

then the function can be written as y = mx + b, where x is the independent
variable, y is the dependent variable, b is the y-intercept, and:

m
=
rise
run
=
change in
y
change in
x
=
Δ
y
Δ
x
.
{\displaystyle m={\frac {\text{rise}}{\text{run}}}={\frac {{\text{change in }}y}{{\
text{change in }}x}}={\frac {\Delta y}{\Delta x}}.}
This gives an exact value for the slope of a straight line.[50]: 6 If the graph of
the function is not a straight line, however, then the change in y divided by the
change in x varies. Derivatives give an exact meaning to the notion of change in
output concerning change in input. To be concrete, let f be a function, and fix a
point a in the domain of f. (a, f(a)) is a point on the graph of the function. If h
is a number close to zero, then a + h is a number close to a. Therefore, (a + h,
f(a + h)) is close to (a, f(a)). The slope between these two points is

m
=
f
(
a
+
h
)
−
f
(
a
)
(
a
+
h
)
−
a
=
f
(
a
+
h
)
−
f
(
a
)
h
.
{\displaystyle m={\frac {f(a+h)-f(a)}{(a+h)-a}}={\frac {f(a+h)-f(a)}{h}}.}
This expression is called a difference quotient. A line through two points on a
curve is called a secant line, so m is the slope of the secant line between (a,
f(a)) and (a + h, f(a + h)). The second line is only an approximation to the
behavior of the function at the point a because it does not account for what
happens between a and a + h. It is not possible to discover the behavior at a by
setting h to zero because this would require dividing by zero, which is undefined.
The derivative is defined by taking the limit as h tends to zero, meaning that it
considers the behavior of f for all small values of h and extracts a consistent
value for the case when h equals zero:

lim
h
→
0
f
(
a
+
h
)
−
f
(
a
)
h
.
{\displaystyle \lim _{h\to 0}{f(a+h)-f(a) \over {h}}.}
Geometrically, the derivative is the slope of the tangent line to the graph of f at
a. The tangent line is a limit of secant lines just as the derivative is a limit of
difference quotients. For this reason, the derivative is sometimes called the slope
of the function f.[50]: 61–63

Here is a particular example, the derivative of the squaring function at the input
3. Let f(x) = x2 be the squaring function.

The derivative f′(x) of a curve at a point is the slope of the line tangent to that
curve at that point. This slope is determined by considering the limiting value of
the slopes of the second lines. Here the function involved (drawn in red) is f(x) =
x3 − x. The tangent line (in green) which passes through the point (−3/2, −15/8)
has a slope of 23/4. The vertical and horizontal scales in this image are
different.
f
′
(
3
)
=
lim
h
→
0
(
3
+
h
)
2
−
3
2
h
=
lim
h
→
0
9
+
6
h
+
h
2
−
9
h
=
lim
h
→
0
6
h
+
h
2
h
=
lim
h
→
0
(
6
+
h
)
=
6
{\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}f'(3)&=\lim _{h\to 0}{(3+h)^{2}-3^{2} \over {h}}\\
&=\lim _{h\to 0}{9+6h+h^{2}-9 \over {h}}\\&=\lim _{h\to 0}{6h+h^{2} \over {h}}\\&=\
lim _{h\to 0}(6+h)\\&=6\end{aligned}}}
The slope of the tangent line to the squaring function at the point (3, 9) is 6,
that is to say, it is going up six times as fast as it is going to the right. The
limit process just described can be performed for any point in the domain of the
squaring function. This defines the derivative function of the squaring function or
just the derivative of the squaring function for short. A computation similar to
the one above shows that the derivative of the squaring function is the doubling
function.[50]: 63

Leibniz notation
Main article: Leibniz's notation
A common notation, introduced by Leibniz, for the derivative in the example above
is

y
=
x
2
d
y
d
x
=
2
x
.
{\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}y&=x^{2}\\{\frac {dy}{dx}}&=2x.\end{aligned}}}
In an approach based on limits, the symbol
dy
/
dx
is to be interpreted not as the quotient of two numbers but as a shorthand for the
limit computed above.[50]: 74 Leibniz, however, did intend it to represent the
quotient of two infinitesimally small numbers, dy being the infinitesimally small
change in y caused by an infinitesimally small change dx applied to x. We can also
think of
d
/
dx
as a differentiation operator, which takes a function as an input and gives
another function, the derivative, as the output. For example:

d
d
x
(
x
2
)
=
2
x
.
{\displaystyle {\frac {d}{dx}}(x^{2})=2x.}
In this usage, the dx in the denominator is read as "with respect to x".[50]: 79
Another example of correct notation could be:

g
(
t
)
=
t
2
+
2
t
+
4
d
d
t
g
(
t
)
=
2
t
+
2
{\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}g(t)&=t^{2}+2t+4\\{d \over dt}g(t)&=2t+2\
end{aligned}}}
Even when calculus is developed using limits rather than infinitesimals, it is
common to manipulate symbols like dx and dy as if they were real numbers; although
it is possible to avoid such manipulations, they are sometimes notationally
convenient in expressing operations such as the total derivative.

Integral calculus
Main article: Integral

Integration can be thought of as measuring the area under a curve, defined by f(x),
between two points (here a and b).

A sequence of midpoint Riemann sums over a regular partition of an interval: the

total area of the rectangles converges to the integral of the function.
Integral calculus is the study of the definitions, properties, and applications of
two related concepts, the indefinite integral and the definite integral. The
process of finding the value of an integral is called integration.[48]: 508 The
indefinite integral, also known as the antiderivative, is the inverse operation to
the derivative.[50]: 163–165 F is an indefinite integral of f when f is a
derivative of F. (This use of lower- and upper-case letters for a function and its
indefinite integral is common in calculus.) The definite integral inputs a function
and outputs a number, which gives the algebraic sum of areas between the graph of
the input and the x-axis. The technical definition of the definite integral
involves the limit of a sum of areas of rectangles, called a Riemann sum.[51]: 282

A motivating example is the distance traveled in a given time.[50]: 153 If the

speed is constant, only multiplication is needed:

D
i
s
t
a
n
c
e
=
S
p
e
e
d
⋅
T
i
m
e
{\displaystyle \mathrm {Distance} =\mathrm {Speed} \cdot \mathrm {Time} }
But if the speed changes, a more powerful method of finding the distance is
necessary. One such method is to approximate the distance traveled by breaking up
the time into many short intervals of time, then multiplying the time elapsed in
each interval by one of the speeds in that interval, and then taking the sum (a
Riemann sum) of the approximate distance traveled in each interval. The basic idea
is that if only a short time elapses, then the speed will stay more or less the
same. However