Course Summary

As the name suggests, Math 115 (Calculus I) is the first course in calculus. The course begins by refamiliarizing ourselves with some of the basic properties of functions: reviewing the library of "basic" functions, creating new functions from old, associating a graphical depiction to a function, and defining the notion of an inverse function. The central concept of calculus --- the limit --- is then introduced and explored as a tool for answering the so-called "tangent line problem." In addition to exploring limits in a handful of contexts, we'll see how this notion of "derivative" can be used to create a new function from our original function, and we'll explore how these two functions are related to each other. We then spend a number of days developing some standard rules for differentiation, after which we apply the derivative to answer a handful of questions (e.g., where does a function take on its maximum and minimum values?). We finish the class with a few days of integration theory; this begins with a geometric question quite different from the "tangent line problem," but ultimately we'll see that it has extremely close connections to the derivative operator.

Course Instructor

The professor for this class is Andy Schultz. His office is on the second floor of the Clapp Library, room 255. He will be available to talk with you thirty minutes before class each day, as well as after class upon your request. The instructor is extremely happy to talk with you outside of class, but it's a good idea to send an email to let him know you want to talk. If meeting before or after class doesn't fit with your schedule, contact the instructor to set up a time that does. You can also try dropping by his office to chat; if his door is open and he has time to talk, he'll be more than happy to help you with whatever calculus (or other) questions you have.

You can contact the instructor at . Though he is always happy to receive emails from you with questions or concerns about the course, he can't guarantee that he'll be able to promptly reply to emails late at night or over the weekend. If you do contact the professor by email, please be sure to follow standard email etiquette. In particular, please make sure you include a greeting and signature and avoid abbreviations. If you're contacting him to ask about a problem, please be sure to specify what the problem asks (as opposed to asking something like ``I can't get problem 2 and need your help").