MATH 21, FALL, 2008

DAVID L. JOHNSON

-1.

What should you expe t in this ourse?

The rst semester of ollege (whi h is what most of you are experien ing) is often a sho k for
1
students. You may have heard this already, but it bears repeating.

-1.1.

Tea hing is dierent now.

There is a dieren e between the way high-s hool ourses are

taught and the way university-level ourses are taught. Along with all the other transitions that
you need to go through now, you will have to adjust your ideas of tea hing and learning to t what
is the standard in universities. Our goal is more than just getting you to reprodu e what was told
to you in the lassroom.

-1.2.

Speed.

Expe t to have material overed at

two to three times

the pa e of high s hool. Above

that, we aim for greater ommand of the material, espe ially the ability to apply what you have
learned to new situations.

-1.3.

Review.

I was surprised a while ba k, in talking to high-s hool tea hers, to nd out they

regularly reviewed the previous years' material for the rst part of ea h lass. That will no longer
o ur. This ourse presumes only a general knowledge about algebra and trigonometry, but will not
be reviewing that material beyond the rst two le tures. Even more dramati ally, when you take
Math 22 in the Spring, it will begin where we leave o, as will Math 23 next Fall.

-1.4.

Class time.

Le ture time is at a premium, so it must be used e iently.

taught everything in the lassroom.

of the learning must take pla e

You annot be

It is your responsibility to learn the material.

outside

Most

the lassroom. you should be willing to put in two hours

outside the lassroom for ea h hour of lass.

-1.5.

The instru tor.

The instru tor's job is primarily to provide a framework, with some of the

parti ulars, to guide you in doing your learning of the on epts and methods that omprise the
material of the ourse.

It is not to program you with isolated fa ts and problem types nor to

monitor your progress.

-1.6.

Reading.

You are expe ted to read the textbook for omprehension.

It gives the detailed

a ount of the material of the ourse. It also ontains many examples of problems worked out, and
these should be used to supplement those you see in the le ture. The textbook is

not

a novel, so

the reading must often be slow-going and areful. However, there is the lear advantage that you
an go at your own pa e. Use pen il and paper to work through the material and

ll in

omitted

steps.
1Some

of these points were taken from

43 (1996), 863865.

Tea hing at the University Level,

1

by Steven Zu ker, Noti es of the AMS,

MATH 21, FALL, 2008

-1.6.1.

When to do the reading.

(1) For most students: Read for the rst time the appropriate se tion(s) of the book before the
material is presented in le ture. Then the faster-pa ed ollege style le ture will make more
sense.
(2) If you haven't looked at the book beforehand try to pi k up what you an from the le ture
(absorb the general idea), and ount on sorting it out later while studying from the book
outside of lass.
-1.6.2.

When

not

to do the reading.

Reading the text the night before an exam is probably worse

than useless, sin e that time should be spent in working problems similar to those you would expe t
to be on the exam. Learning al ulus is not a question of remembering fa ts and gures, but instead
a pro ess of gaining uen y with the methods and ideas involved.

0.

Introdu tion

As has been pointed out to you before, al ulus is

have seen before al ulus.

Why?

dierent, dierent from any math that you would

There are two fundamental things that make it dierent, and

those are the things that make it important for you to learn about.
point of al ulus is

measurement

The rst is that the whole

of things, things like slope, area, speed, whi h we deal with all

the time. Until al ulus there hadn't been a way to des ribe a urately, mathemati ally, that measurement ex ept in very spe ial (simple) ases. Making the measurement of su h quantities pre ise,
mathemati ally, is the fundamental idea of al ulus. The other is the idea of

modeling,

of turning

a real situation into a mathemati al stru ture. The mathemati al approa h to understanding any
situation is to strip away all the spe ial ir umstan es of the situation, so that it looks mu h like a
number of other situations. Then, solving that one general problem solves all the similar situations.
We are going to be worried about a lot of modeling situations that ould not be dealt with without
al ulus  that is, without the measurements that al ulus makes pre ise.
0.1.

The area problem.

We'll start of with an example of how this idea of measurement works.

When we get around to studying it in detail, later on, it will be one of the last al ulus-measurements
we will make pre ise, but it is the best to des ribe rst.
Originally, the Greeks used this idea to nd the area of a ir le, alled the method of exhaustion.
It is geometri ally lear how to nd the area of a square (width

height), and if you think about

it, by breaking it up into triangles, you an nd the area of any regular polygon (like a pentagon, a
hexagon, and o tagon,
It's just

r 2 

et .).

But it's not so simple to nd the area of a ir le (those of you thinking

are missing the problem of where that formula ame from). What they did was to

take regular polygons, ins ribed in a ir le, measure the area of ea h one, and take progressively
more sides (whi h gives a polygon that looks progressively more like a ir le), and

in the limit

as

the number of sides went to innity, they ould nd the area of the ir le. For now, that idea of in
the limit should just mean you take more and more sides, nding the area of ea h polygon. Those
areas are getting loser to

r 2

as the number of sides in reases.

We don't have to deal with those hard-to ompute areas of polygons; we an instead ome up with
an equivalent, but more modern, way to do the same measurement. We an use just the top half

a,
then the ir les has
y > 0, y = a2 x2 . We then

of the ir le, and double it to get the whole area. If the ir le has radius

2
equation x
hop up the

y2

a2 , or, sin e we have the top half and so

+
=
x-axis, from a

to

a,

into a bun h of se tions.

the largest re tangle ompletely under the urve ( alled an

(width

Over ea h se tion we an onstru t

ins ribed re tangle ),

and nd the area

height) of ea h re tangle. Add them up, and you get the area of the semi- ir le. Well,

approximately. In order to get the a tual area, pre isely, and not an approximation, you need to

MATH 21, FALL, 2008

repeat the pro ess, over and over, with more and more re tangles that are skinnier and skinnier,
and in the limit you will nd the area.
0.2.

Tangent and Velo ity Problems.

We ertainly know what we mean by a line

tangent

to a

urve at a point. The line goes through that point, and the slope is the same as that of the urve.
But, how do we measure that slope? Let's say, to make the idea seem more pre ise  and to see how
we will ompute this measurement  let's say that the urve is the graph of a fun tion
that is, the urve is the set of points

(x, f (x)).

We want to nd the slope at, say,

x = 2.

y = f (x),

How do we

do it? We ould just  arefully measure it, but that would probably have some error, and what do
we mean by how we are measuring it? We need a pro edure that will lead to the slope of the urve.
The way to do it is to nd the slope of something simpler, a

line,

and relate that line's slope to

that of the urve. The relationship is that the line we look at is one near the tangent line, whi h we
onstru t (here is the appeal to the spe ial ases we already know about) by taking the line through

(2, f (2))

and a nearby point,

(x, f (x)),

for

x near 2.

This is alled a se ant line. As we take

x loser

to 2, the se ant line gets loser to the tangent, and the slope of the se ant gets loser to that of the
tangent. Again, in the

limit

as

x 2,

the slope of this approximating line (whose slope we know

dire tly) approa hes that of the urve at 2. The se ant line's slope is an approximation of the slope
of the urve, the limit is exa tly what we mean by the slope:

slope :=
=

lim {slope of secant}

x2

f (x) f (2)
x2
x2
lim

Now, what that word limit means is something we have to make more pre ise next time.

Example 1.

Let's nd the slope of the fun tion

f (x) := x2 3x

at

x = 2.

Taking a number of

points nearer and nearer 2 gives us a learer and learer idea of the slope at 2 exa tly:

f (3) f (2)
32
f (2.5) f (2)
x = 2.5;
2.5 2
f (2.2) f (2)
x = 2.2;
2.2 2
f (2.1) f (2)
x = 2.1;
2.1 2
f (2.002) f (2)
x = 2.002;
2.002 2
x = 3;

= 2
= 1.5
= 1.2
= 1.1
= 1.002

I think I get the pattern now. But why don't I just plug in

x = 2?

Be ause the formula doesn't

make sense. To get a se ant line you need 2 points, and that would be the same point at both ends.
Certainly, however, the slope of the urve has to be 1 at

Velo ity:

A similar idea is behind our notion of

are going, we an nd the

instantaneous velo ity

x = 2.

velo ity.

We an see immediately how fast we

of a ar we are driving, just by looking at the

speedometer. But what is that really measuring? The

average velo ity makes sense, it's the distan e

traveled over a spe i amount of time. But the speedometer doesn't measure that, it has a reading
at ea h instant, and it doesn't al ulate an average velo ity.
But the idea of instantaneous velo ity of a moving ar, at a spe i time, has to be interpreted as
another limiting pro ess, taking average velo ities over shorter and shorter time intervals:

velocity v := lim

t0

distance
t

MATH 21, FALL, 2008

where

means the hange in time,

= change in.

If you plot the distan e on the verti al axis, and time on the horizontal, then you have the same
pi ture as before, and the velo ity is the slope of that graph.

0.3.

Sequen es and series.

I always begin a dis ussion of series and sequen es (these two topi s

are really one idea, viewed from two dierent sides) with Greek mythology.

This keeps alive the

belief that we are fostering liberal edu ation.

Today's myth is that of A hilles and the tortoise.

The story is, for reasons that I'll never gure

out, they are going to have a ra e. (This is also told with a hare in the role of A hilles, but then
it doesn't seem so Greek.) The paradox involved in this story is that, assuming A hilles gives the
tortoise a head start, whi h is only fair, he an never win, sin e in order to over the distan e from
A hilles to the tortoise (the head start), A hilles must rst go half that distan e, then half the
remaining distan e, and then half of that,

et etera,

so that he has to do

innitely

many things in

order to at h up to the tortoise.

As with all the Greek paradoxes, this has an explanation.
A hilles to the tortoise is 1 mile.

Let's assume that the distan e from

Then, in order to get to the tortoise, A hilles must rst go a

distan e 1/2 mile, whi h would take him, say, 2 minutes.

He then has to go the next 1/4 mile,

whi h would take 1 minute, then the next 1/8 mile, taking 1/2 minute, then the next 1/16 mile,
taking 1/4 minute,

et etera.

So, adding this all up, he has to run:

1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + . . . miles,

whi h takes:

2 + 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + . . . minutes.

These totals may seem innite, sin e they do go on forever, like some demented math professor, but
they a tually do approa h a nite value as a limit.
When you think about it, A hilles only has to run the one mile (the tortoise hasn't even taken a
step yet), whi h is
(he

is

1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + = 1,

and it takes

2 + 1 + (1/2 + 1/4 + . . . ) = 4

minutes

fast). There is really no paradox, sin e the innitely many things he has to do an be done

innitely fast at the end.

Series. There are many oddities involved in this innite summation pro ess, whi h we all
innite series. An innite series is an innite sum. There are a few examples where we really

0.3.1.
an

an see the innite sum, like the one above.

(1)
(2)

1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + = 2

1
1
1
12 + 23 + 34 + = 1.

The last series, alled the

1
n(n+1)

1
n

teles oping series,

is the easiest of all to see, on e you know the tri k:

1
n+1 . So, you add them together:

1
1
1
1 1
1 1
1 1
1 1
+
+
+ ... = ( ) + ( ) + ( ) + ( ) + ...
12 23 34
1 2
2 3
3 4
4 5
1 1
1 1
1 1
1
1
+ ( + ) + ( + ) + ( + ) + ( + . . . ) + . . .
=
1
2 2
3 3
4 4
5
= 1.

MATH 21, FALL, 2008

0.3.2.

Sequen es.

We need to get some terminology straight here. A

innite sum. The things you add up are the

terms

series, or innite series, is the

innite sequen e. A

of the series. They form an

sequen e is just the listing, one number after another. A series is a summing of those numbers.
Mathemati ians think of sequen es as being easier to understand. Just one number after another.
You an usually tell if the sequen e is approa hing something, like

1/n

n goes to
{an }. We say
L as n gets large.

approa hes 0, as

Te hni ally, a sequen e is a fun tion of the positive integers, but we write one as

that a sequen e

limit L as n , if the numbers (terms ) approa h

examples. We usually really only are about limits of sequen es,

{an }

Let's look at some

has a

and whether

they exist. For example, nd the limits of the following sequen es, if they exist:
(1)
(2)
(3)

an = 1/2n
bn = 2n
{cn } = {3, 3.1, 3.14, 3.141, 3.1415, 3.14159, . . .}
1.

1.1.

Fun tions.

(This

should

remind you of something).

Fun tions and Models

Cal ulus deals almost always with fun tions.

Although the term has dierent

fun tion y = f (x), or just f , is always dened as

domain of the fun tion, a value y in what is alled

meanings in other situations, in mathemati s a

the assignment, to ea h
the

range

the range

in a set alled the

of the fun tion. To ea h

of

f : A B.
The reason we want to leave out the

f (x),

there is one and only one

(we often leave out the

(x)

(x)

of a fun tion

f,

the value when

x=2

x,

To indi ate the domain

and

f rather than
f (x) = x2 . That

alling it by just the letter

is sometimes onfusing. Let's say we dene a fun tion

means, to ea h number

y.

when we refer to a fun tion), we sometimes write

by a formula, say

this fun tion assigns its square. You write a parti ular ase of that, say

(that value is 4, of ourse), by writing

f (2) = 4.

Really, we should write

f( )

for the fun tion itself, but we leave out the parentheses.
We an also repla e the
and

f (t) =

by another letter, so for this same fun tion

f (x) = x2 , f (t)

makes sense,

t2 .

There is some onfusion between the fun tion f itself and its graph. The graph of a fun tion
f (x) = x2 , for x in a spe ied domain (say from -1 to 2), is the set of points (x, f (x)) in the plane
where x [1, 2], that is, the set of points (x, y) where x [1, 2] and for ea h su h x, the y is
2
that one y satisfying y = f (x) = x . One thing to note is that the graph satises the verti al line
test, that is, any verti al line meets the graph only on e.
Depending on the information available, a fun tion an be des ribed in a number of dierent ways.
This text lists four distin t ways, but with a little imagination you ould probably ome up with

algebrai ally,

more. You've already seen fun tions dened by formulas (

in the terminology of the

t, f (t)
y - oordinate of the point on the ir le of radius 1, entered at the origin, at an angle t from
the positive x-axis. In this ase, f (t) = sin(t). A ommon way to des ribe a fun tion in s ien e
and engineering is as a table of values, that is, for various values of x, values of f (x) are expli itly

text), and graphs. A fun tion an also be des ribed verbally, su h as the following: For ea h
is the

written out.
Another way that fun tions are often dened for al ulus texts, whi h you rarely see elsewhere, is
pie ewise, that is, for some part of the domain
the domain

is dened by one formula, and in other parts of

has another formula. We write these fun tions with a bra e, indi ating whi h formula

is used for whi h parts of the domain. An example would be:

f (x) :=

1 x,
x2 ,

if x

1
if x > 1.

MATH 21, FALL, 2008

Some of these pie ewise fun tions you have seen before, su h as the absolute value fun tion

|x|.

Sin e

|x|

is the same as

x 0,

for

sign by adding another) so

but

|x|

g(x) = |x| :=

is the opposite sign for

x,
x,

if x
if x

x < 0,

g(x) =

(erase the negative

0
< 0.

pie ewise-dened fun tions allow us to think about a lot of properties of fun tions that you don't
see when you only deal with fun tions dened by a single formula.

More properties of fun tions.

Some fun tions have spe ial properties that make them easier to

understand. The rst notion is that of

f (x) = f (x),

and is

odd

to ree tion about the

if

symmetry

f (x) = f (x).

y -axis,

(even or odd fun tions). a fun tion

f (x) is even

if

An even fun tion has mirror symmetry with respe t

and an odd fun tion has ipped symmetry, or is symmetri with

respe t to the origin.

There is some reason to this terminology, sin e

f (x) = x4

is an even fun tion, and

g(x) = x3

is an

odd fun tion.

1.2.

Modeling.

This se tion introdu es a number of general lasses of fun tions, fun tions whi h

o ur as models of various natural phenomena

Linear fun tions: These are fun tions of the sort f (x) = ax + b. Their graphs are lines.
Polynomials: These are important primarily be ause we an understand their properties
quite easily, and be ause any fun tion an be pretty-well approximated by a polynomial for

x (more about that later). A polynomial fun tion of degree n is a

f (x) = an xn +an1 xn1 + +a1 x+a0 . For example, f (x) = 3x2 2x+4

a limited range of values of

fun tion of the sort

is a polynomial of degree 2.

Powers:

f (x) = xa , where a an be any number. The big thing to worry

1
1/2 = x, and x3/2 =
about here is to keep straight the rules for exponents, su h as x
3.
( x)
Trigonometri fun tions: You should know the basi properties of fun tions like sin(x),
cos(x), tan(x), et ., where x is an angle in radians.
Exponential fun tions: These are fun tions of the sort f (x) = ax . Note that the x is in the
exponent. The number a is the base. We'll introdu e these later, but again we expe t you
Fun tions of the sort

to be familiar with their basi properties.

Logarithms:
a

is the

These are the inverses of exponential fun tions, written

base.

f (x) = loga x.

Again,

The text mentions trans endental fun tions as if they were a spe i lass of fun tions. But they
are not.

A fun tion is

algebrai

if it is a sum or quotient of polynomials and roots (fra tional

powers). If it isn't algebrai , then it is alled

1.3.

Combining fun tions together.

(f + g)(x) = f (x) + g(x),

trans endental.

You should be familiar with how to add fun tions together,

as well as multipli ation and division of fun tions. The biggest on ern

will be omposition of fun tions, one fun tion followed by another. That is
to it, and then does
as

sin( 3x + 2),

f (g(x))

takes

x,

does

to the result. You will use this most often to re ognize that a fun tion, su h

is a omposition of simpler fun tions, and so an be analyzed by breaking it down

into those simpler omponents.

MATH 21, FALL, 2008

1.4.

Computers and al ulators.

We will not be requiring any al ulators for this ourse. Of

ourse, if you have a al ulator and are omfortable with it, you an use it to he k your work.
We don't want you to be dependent upon them, however, and we will not allow them on exams.
Also, unless spe i ally marked as a al ulator/ omputer exer ise, you should not use a al ulator
to produ e a graph, or to evaluate expressions as de imal approximations.
We use, from time to time, a omputer program, Maple, for some exer ises.
1.5.

Exponentials.

Exponential fun tions are fun tions of the sort

of the exponential., and has to be positive.

is alled the

base

They are distin tly dierent from power fun tions,

although students often onfuse them. For example, if

f (1) = 2, f (2) = 2, f (3) = 8, f (2) = 1/4.

f (x) = ax . a

a = 2,

the fun tion

f (x)

satises

f (0) = 1,

There is a great plot of various exponential fun tions

(various bases, that is), on p. 58 of your text. Here is a bla k-and-white version of it:

00

-1

2
x

The primary reason to study exponential fun tions is that they model many natural phenomena,
that is, the behavior of many systems are expressed in terms of exponential fun tions. Su h things as
ompound interest, radioa tive de ay, and population growth are governed by exponential fun tions.
One urious number always mentioned in this ontext is

e. e

is just a number, like

whi h has

That letter, e, is almost-always reserved for that parti ular number (again, like
3.14159. e is has a value known to lots of de imal pla es. It is approximately 2.71828. But
e, like , omes from a spe i relationship. If you look at the graphs of the various exponential
x
0
fun tions y = a for a number of hoi es of a, they all pass through (1, 0), sin e a = 1 for any
positive number a. e is that hoi e of base so that the slope of the urve as it passes through (1, 0)

a spe i value.

is 1.
By the way, just like
1.6.

, e

is irrational.

Inverse fun tions and Logarithms.

Logarithms are the inverse fun tions of exponential

f (don't write
g(f (x)) = x, that is, g
f (g(x)) = x. We usually

fun tions. But what do we mean by an inverse fun tion? The inverse of a fun tion
as

y = f (x)

for now, it adds to the onfusion) is another fun tion,

undoes what
all that

by

g,

so that

does. Also, it works the other way for the same fun tions,

f 1 ,

even though that is

of writing the relationship between

not

1/f (x) as you might think.

x = f 1 (y) y = f (x).

the same as

1 is that
and f

Another way

MATH 21, FALL, 2008

The square root is the standard inverse fun tion.

does, sin e

x2 = x.

Right? Not exa tly. If

f 1 (x) =

ertainly undoes what

x is positive, then yes, it works that way.

f (x) = x2

This example

points out one onfusing fa t about some inverse fun tions. Often they don't really make sense. In

order for an inverse fun tion to

to exist, not only for ea h

x an there only be one y

with

y = f (x)

(the verti al line test for it to be a fun tion!), but it also has to work the other way around, that
is, for ea h

there an be only one

x.

This is the horizontal line test.

f (x) = x2 , it fails the horizontal

But, if you restri t the domain of f to be only the nonnegative
there is only one x, and that x is the inverse applied to y .
Now, for the square fun tion

x
is

and y.
x

line test. So, no inverse, move on.

reals,

x 0,

then, for ea h

There is a heap tri k the textbooks have at this point. and that is to mess with what

y.

and what is

the inverse of

f,

If

y = f (x)

is the formula for

f,

then how do you write the formula for

if it exists? One way is to just treat

independent variable,
you des ribe the

y,

g(x) = y .

But

and

and it's the same for

g.

as any other fun tion, so that the

play dierent roles here, for the fun tion

But,

as

g is the range of f , and the other way around). So maybe it makes more
g(y) = x. This has the added benet of making sense when you solve.

Finding the inverse.

Given

y = f (x),

is the

given

how do you nd

g,

x
f

sense to deal

if it does exist (after you straighten

x = f 1 (y). That way, x

plays the same role throughout. Thinking along those lines, if y = f (x), then for that x and that
y , f 1 (y) = x, sin e f 1 undoes what f does, so you go forward and ba k, x y, y x. The
method is to simply solve the equation y = f (x) for y in terms of x. If the solution makes sense,
out the domain of

f,

f 1 ,

ought to be really dened on the range of

(domain of
with

y = x2 ,

so it works)?

Well, the easy way is to nd it as

the inverse exists, and there is the formula.

Example 2.
fun tion

g=

If

Example 3.
Logarithms.

ax .

f (x) =

2x+1
x1 , nd where

f (x)

has an inverse, and nd the formula for the inverse

f 1 .
Find the inverse of

f (x) = x3 1.

Logarithms are the inverse of exponentiation, that is,

loga x

is the inverse of

f (x) =

Said another way, logarithms are just exponents in reverse:

y = logb x x = by .

log4 2 = 1/2, log3 (1/3) = 1, and so on. There is a spe ial ase, when the base is e. Then,
loge x, we write ln x, the natural logarithm of x. There is also another notation for
log10 x. It is sometimes alled log x, the ommon logarithm of x. Unfortunately, most post- al ulus
math texts now onfuse the notational issue even more, by writing the natural logarithm of x as
log x. Hopefully, it will be lear from the ontext whi h is meant. To a mathemati ian, there is no
So,

instead of writing

spe ial signi an e of the number 10, ex ept for the number of ngers we have.

Rules for Logarithms:

These are just rules for exponents,

ba kwards.

In fa t, the logarithm

fun tions are pre isely the inverse of exponentials:

logb (bx ) = x and blogb (x) = x,

for all bases

ln x
and e

and all values of

for whi h the expressions make sense. In parti ular,

= x.

Proposition 1. For all b, c, and d, c and d > 0,

(1)
(2)

logb (cd) = logb (c) + logb (d),

logb (cd ) = d logb (c), Here d an

be negative.

ln(ex ) = x,

MATH 21, FALL, 2008

(3)

Proof.

This last fa t means that you an nd the logarithm of c to any base, if
you know all logarithms of one base.
logb (c)
logb (d)

(2)
(3)
(4)

= logd (c).

The proofs onsist of turning around the rules for exponents.

Example.
(1)

Here are some equations involving logarithms:

log2 80 log2 5 = log2 (80/5) = log2 16 = 4.

2x = ex ln 2 .
Solve for x: ln x + ln(x 1) = 1.
Find limx (ln(2 + x) ln(1 + x)). Here
limx0+ ln(x) = .

we should note that

The graphs of the various logarithm fun tions, for dierent bases
used are

b = 2, e, 3,

b,

limx ln(x) = ,

and

are shown below. The bases

and 10.

y 1

0.5

1.5
x

2.5

-1

-2

The thing I want you to see with these plots is the fa t that they all pass through the point
but with dierent slopes.

The steepest is that of

log10 (x).

Lehigh University
E-mail address :

david.johnsonlehigh.edu

log2 (x),

(1, 0),

and the shallowest (at that point) is