How do people feel about introducing (very lightly) the use of calculus to determine the slope of curves? High school kids, after all, do encounter calculus these days. Human 14:53, 15 May 2007 (EDT)
- Sure, I was just thinking about that. In algebra, we speak only of the slope of a line. That's easy, because it has the same slope at all points.
- But a parabola has a different slope at every point. In differential calculus, you can find the slope of any curve f(x) by "differentiating" it. For example, if y = ax2 then dy/dx (the slope) is 2ax. And the slope of sin x = cos x which is somehow really fascinating to me because my life has so many ups and downs. ;-) --Ed Poor Talk 19:21, 1 October 2007 (EDT)
I recommend inserting an image in the "introduction to derivatives" section showing a sequence of secant lines getting closer and closer to the tangent line to the graph of some function. I think it's hard for people who have never seen the derivative to get the idea just from the formal definition.--Lemonpeel 22:48, 5 July 2008 (EDT)