Notes from April 30 - Introduction to Limits

Today, we were introduced to limits. At the moment, it's a calculator-heavy concept, but we eventually will learn to do evaluate them without the calculator.

The actual definition of a limit will not be pleasing right now, but for now, we have an "intuitive" definition:

lim f (x) = L

x -> c

where for x values "close" to c, the y values are "close" to L.

April 12 - Proof by Induction

Proof by induction is a tricky little concept and it will take some time to figure it out. It really emphasizes algebra skills (of all things...) and the really disconcerting thing is that it is sometimes hard to recognize you're finished; it may not feel as though you've really done anything.

But.

It is a powerful tool in a mathematician's arsenal and if you continue to take math past calculus, you can most certainly expect to see it again.

Here are my notes from today:

These are the notes from today. We learned to evaluate the sumation of geometric sequences. That equation is on the first page. We also looked at examples of doing this, and I made a note that for the example with the 6th power, there were for complex roots that we DO NOT need to know.

March 31 - Arithmetic Sequences

We defined an arithmetic sequence today in class as a sequence in which there is a constant difference between terms. I gave my version of the formula for the nth term in an arithmetic sequence; note that it differs slightly from the formula in the book.

Thanks to Jaime for today's notes. :)