Lecture 1:

So... What Are We Trying To

Study In Calculus?

Dr. Gary Au
au@math.usask.ca
MATH 133: Engineering Mathematics I
University of Saskatchewan

Lecture 1: 1/12
Motivation

I While MATH 133 and MATH 134 contain a range of mathematical

topics, the majority of our time will be spent on Calculus.
I Thus, it is worthwhile to take a high-level overview of the type of
problems we are aiming to tackle with Calculus ideas.

Lecture 1: 2/12
Motivation

Consider the following pair of problems:

Problem 1
Suppose an object moving along a straight line has displacement s(t) at
time t. How do we find its velocity at any given time?
Problem 2
Suppose an object moving along a straight line has velocity v (t) at time t.
How do we find the displacement of the object at any given time?

Lecture 1: 3/12
Relating Displacement and Velocity

Example 1
Suppose an object has (constant) velocity v (t) = 10 m/s.
I Since
displacement = velocity × time
in the case of constant velocity, the displacement function is s(t) = 10t.
I Thus, the displacement-time graph is a straight line with a constant
slope of 10.
I Notice that the slope of s(t) coincides with v (t) for every t.
I Also, given k > 0, the displacement from t = 0 to t = k is equal to 10k,
which coincides with the area underneath the graph of v (t) from t = 0
to t = k.

Lecture 1: 4/12
Relating Displacement and Velocity
Example 2
√
Suppose an object has displacement s(t) = t m at t seconds. How do we
find its velocity at, say, t = 1?
https://www.desmos.com/calculator/lmghim3knx

I This time the object is not moving at a constant speed, so we need

some new ideas to analyze this situation.
I While we don’t have the tools for finding instantaneous velocity yet, we
can compute the average velocity between two time points. Observe
that the average velocity of the object between t = 1 and t = k is
√
s(k) − s(1) k −1
= m/s,
k −1 k −1
Lecture 1: 5/12
Example 2 (continued)
I Thus, if we plug in k close to 1, we’d get the average velocity of a very
short duration around t = 1, which should be close to what we want?
√ k 0.9 0.99 0.999 1.001 1.01 1.1
k −1
0.5132 0.5013 0.5001 0.4999 0.4988 0.4881
k −1
I We can let k get as close to 1 as we want to obtain a better
approximation. However, to get the instantaneous velocity, it looks like
we’d have to actually plug in k = 1, which would lead to the
denominator being zero.
I Nonetheless, notice that even in the case of non-constant velocity,
velocity still corresponds to some kind of slope of the graph s(t).

Lecture 1: 6/12
Relating Displacement and Velocity

Example 3
√
Suppose an object has velocity v (t) = t m/s at t seconds. How much did
it move from t = 0 to, say, t = 3?
https://www.desmos.com/calculator/qvslrph2xb

I Again, this seems to be a tough question in the case of non-constant

velocity. But, again, we can approximate!
√
I From v (t) = t, we can get the velocity at any given time point. E.g.,
t √1 √2 √3
v (t) 1 2 3

Lecture 1: 7/12
 t √1 √2 √3
v (t) 1 2 3

Example 3 (continued)
√
I If
√ v (t) were constantly 1 between t = 0 and t = 1,
√ then constantly
2 between t = 1 and t = 2, and then constantly 3 between t = 2
and t = 3, then we would be able to compute the displacement:
√ √ √
1 × 1 + 2 × 1 + 3 × 1 ≈ 4.146.

This is not exactly what we want, but should be close-ish?

I Now, observe that our approximation corresponds to the total area of
three rectangles lying under the modified, “stepwise constant” velocity
function.

Lecture 1: 8/12
Example 3 (continued)
I Now here is an idea: Instead of breaking the smooth velocity curve into
three time segments, we can do so for any number of time segments!
I As the number of segments increases, the “stepwise constant” velocity
approximation gets closer and closer to the actual velocity function,
and our displacement approximate should get increasingly close to
what we want.
I Notice that the finer and finer
√approximations also converge to the
actual area underneath the t curve from t = 0 to t = 3. This
suggests that, as with the constant-velocity case, displacement is
related to the area underneath the velocity curve.
I To get the exact displacement, we want the “stepwise constant”
velocity to have infinitely many steps, with each time segment
shrinking to zero. But... how could we find the total area of infinitely
many rectangles, each with basically zero width?
Lecture 1: 9/12
Relating Displacement and Velocity
Here are some unifying themes from Examples 1 to 3.
I Going from s(t) to v (t) (Examples 1 and 2) amounts to finding some
kind of slope on the curve of s(t) at various t.
I Going from v (t) to s(t) (Examples 1 and 3) amounts to finding some
kind of area under the curve of v (t) over an interval.
I The problem of finding the slope on the curve of s(t) at various t
seems to be the “reverse” of the problem of computing the area
underneath a curve over an interval.
I In both Examples 2 and 3, we managed to get really close to what we
want, but couldn’t get all the way there:
I In Example 2, we basically want to find the slope at a single point, which
would require dividing by 0 in the “rise-over-run” slope formula.
I In Example 3, we want to find the sum of infinitely many quantities, each
of which being vanishingly small.
Lecture 1: 10/12
Roadmap Ahead

I The s(t)-to-v (t) problem, which more broadly is the study of

continuous change, is key to differential calculus, which we will study
in MATH 133.
I The v (t)-to-s(t) problem, which more broadly is the study of
continuous accumulation, is key to integral calculus, which we will
study in MATH 134.
I In MATH 133 and 134, we’ll focus on univariate functions (i.e.,
functions of one variable). Then, in your second year, we’ll extend
these tools to analyze multivariate functions (i.e., functions with
multiple variables).

Lecture 1: 11/12
Summary of Key Ideas

I We took a peek into calculus via the problem of deriving the velocity
function of an object giving its displacement function, and vice versa.
I We saw how the two problems above are related to the “signature
problems” in differential calculus (i.e., finding slopes to a given curve at
a given point) and in integral calculus (i.e., finding the area underneath
a curve over an interval),
I While the situation is nice and easy when velocity is constant, we saw
the need for developing more tools to handle the general case for
varying velocity.

Lecture 1: 12/12