Calculus is one of the grandest achievements of human thought, explaining everything from planetary orbits to the optimal size of a city to the periodicity of a heartbeat. This brisk course covers the core ideas of single-variable Calculus with emphases on conceptual understanding and applications. The course is ideal for students beginning in the engineering, physical, and social sciences. Distinguishing features of the course include: 1) the introduction and use of Taylor series and approximations from the beginning; 2) a novel synthesis of discrete and continuous forms of Calculus; 3) an emphasis on the conceptual over the computational; and 4) a clear, dynamic, unified approach. In this first part--part one of five--you will extend your understanding of Taylor series, review limits, learn the *why* behind l'Hopital's rule, and, most importantly, learn a new language for describing growth and decay of functions: the BIG O.
BS
Awesome , I love to do maths ( challenging maths ) like we are playing game and clearing level one by one ,but still it will be better if we get answer of question which we failed to attempt it
HB
As a mathematics student in high school who just wanted to learn and explore more in calculus and university math this was a great first step to start with. Can't wait to go for chapter 2!!!
DP
Very creative way of teaching one of the most important and difficult applied math topic. The course is taught differently then traditional textbook and is challenging as well.
YG
Very well structured for a refresher course. Thank you Professor Ghrist for your effort in putting this course together. A little additional outside research was required but well worth the effort.
NK
Would have preferred accompanying solutions. Just getting the answer ain't enough. Making sure my approach is correct is essential as well considering the course touches upon the absolute basics.
RH
Excellent class. Prof. Ghrist has a great teaching style, and his idea to use Taylor Series first is quite effective. Many functions I have shied away from in the past are now familiar to me.
AS
The course is intriguing. More practice questions and explanations will be good. And it will be beneficial if it can provide extra background knowledge (or link) for further study.
YF
There were certain advanced concepts that could have had a better and clearer explanation such as the “big O”. But on the whole it was a very good course and very much recommendable.
KR
Very good and challenging material! This motivated me to do better in my Calculus Courses. Would definitely have more of these courses soon, as this is suited for higher mathematics in college.
EL
Wonderful course. I can't even remember when was the last time that I was challenged in this way. Congratulations. Great content, great videos, great practice, great challenges.
SW
This course is difficult, and sometimes is not easy to know how to correct the homework questions since there are no analysis of them and the answers in the forum are not quite complete.
NL
Excellent introduction to Calculus, I wanted to review the material to tutor my child but I am very happy that I learned a whole new way of looking at Calculus.Thank you so much Prof. Ghrist.
Showing: 20 of 623
This course, which teaches calculus, assumes that the audience already knows calculus. That's so ridiculous!
As I already have my Mathematics Minor, I wanted a quick refresher course. I would say this course is severely lacking in both practice problems as well as example problems done during video sessions. Students need more applied concepts to be able to understand and succeed if this content is not familiar. I got by only by preexisting knowledge of these Math concepts.
Not worth it - better to just read a book on calculus, as the homework questions at the end of each session does not even reflect one single example in the 16min session. Disappointed, but then again what can you learn in 15 min sessions, very little.
Amazing course! I took Calc 1 and 2 way back when and plan to attend college again starting this summer to earn another degree. Being Engineering, I wanted to brush up on my calc 1 and 2 before I dive into DiffEQs and Linear Algebera and this course did just that for me. The best part about it was that he assumes you alerady have a basic understanding of the material so its not like starting from square 1.
Very well structured for a refresher course. Thank you Professor Ghrist for your effort in putting this course together. A little additional outside research was required but well worth the effort.
Excellent class. Prof. Ghrist has a great teaching style, and his idea to use Taylor Series first is quite effective. Many functions I have shied away from in the past are now familiar to me.
It was a great journey with Calculus with the help of Coursera. i learned many things about Functions, Taylor series and Order of Growth. Thank you for creating such a great platfarm for us.
Interesting starting point for calculus which makes intuitive sense. The visuals in the lectures are excellent, specifically on the explanation of limits. Taking this course is akin to reading a spy thriller book, the farther one goes the more intriguing it gets.
very difficult for first time learner
After being in the computer software industry for 12 years, I wanted to challenge myself with another full-time master's degree heavy on Math. It's been over 12 years since I set aside time any time to learn mathematics (I am 35 years old now). Now driven by the need to refresh my basic math skills I enrolled in this course.
Prof. Ghrist is a very passionate teacher who has not only clearly made significant efforts to create this material, but delivers it in a structure and style which will help you build rock solid foundation of single variable calculus, IF you work on all the homework assignments. He divides the homework into "core homework" and "challenge homework", and I feel that doing all of them is essential to gain mastery of the material. The problems in the homework are non-trivial and make you think.
For those interested, Prof. Ghrist has also published Kindle-only ebook (several volumes, east costing less than a Starbucks coffee) on Multivariable Calculus where he walks through the concepts in the same style, covering all the basics. I have already purchased volume 1 of it, and I am excited to work on the problems in the remaining parts of this course, and then read his ebook on Multivariate calculus.
I feel very thankful to Prof. Ghrist for this wonderful work, and to Coursera for bringing such advanced material from exceptional teachers for people all across the world.
Great one.
Teacher Ghrist is good at providing thought-provoking insight and visualization of basic function, math formula as well as series expansion.
In addition, this course starts with a set of basic functions and domain knowledge such as simple polynomial, trigonometric, exponential, natural log, hyperbolic trigonometric, simple derivative and integral, and so on.
Then we will go through Taylor series and its expansion. To be honest, Taylor series as well as expansion is the key essential part of this course, it is not only useful for us to evaluate function value and its error of a given point, but also practical to get better understanding of limitation within 0/0 and ∞/∞ as well as L'Hospital's Rule later.
Finally, this course ends with analysis of function growth rate, upper bound of function when it comes to zero point or infinity, and the application of L'Hospital's Rule.
It is strongly recommended taking this course to start our wonderful calculus journey.
Awesome , I love to do maths ( challenging maths ) like we are playing game and clearing level one by one ,but still it will be better if we get answer of question which we failed to attempt it
Very good and challenging material! This motivated me to do better in my Calculus Courses. Would definitely have more of these courses soon, as this is suited for higher mathematics in college.
Good course but lecture material was not quite comprehensive enough to tackle the questions with confidence.
Interesting approach to start a calculus lesson. I liked it very much although I can understand that some people dislike the steep learning curve. On the other hand it was stated from the beginning that this is a tough course. Summarized I learned a trick or two for which I am grateful. Thanks! Lastly there are active mentors in this course that are very helpful. Overall the course is very recommendable for advanced and curious calculus students.
Unexpectedly interesting course on Calculus, some of the extra problems are really difficult. With a total of 109 problems and many colorful lectures, it is one of the best courses on Calculus in English. - Nikita Skybytskyi, winner of the International Mathematical Olympiad
Excellent introduction to Calculus, I wanted to review the material to tutor my child but I am very happy that I learned a whole new way of looking at Calculus.
Thank you so much Prof. Ghrist.
Most horrible teacher and course! There is something wrong with this guy. Have to unenrole, unable to follow.
Great introduction to calculus/analysis. Covers a good range of functions and applications. Starting with Taylor series is an approach I hadn't seen much before, it worked well. Fantastic graphics and animation, they make for a rather cool pedagogical aid. Prof Grist's delivery is another plus, it's simply very good.
My only concern is in treatment of 'Big-O' notation, I feel that the link with limits is not spelled out and expanded upon as well as it might be. Then again, I may not have understood things correctly.
Anyway, overall a very good course. Highly recommended.
Excellent course from a great school and excellent professor. The videos were informative. I found this class to be very challenging. I ended up with an A and look forward to the next parts. I think you need some exposure to calculus before taking this class. I took calculus 8 years ago.