Calculus Assignment 8

Date Assigned: Wednesday, February 24, 1999

Date to turn in: Wednesday , March 3, 1999

  1. Section 5.2 - 1, 5, 9 15
  2. Section 5.3 - 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, 21, 25
  3. Read Sections 5.5 and 5.6 and write a 100 word summary of section 5.5
 

General Goals for the class:

Section 5.2 covers the topic the authors call families of functions.  Basically it is about funtions with a variable x and one or more arbitrary constants which can take on various values.  It requires a slightly deeper understanding of algebra and of graphing in general.  I have only assigned 4 problems from that set.  It will be of importance to people who persue subjects like theoretical physics

Section 5.3 covers the topic of finding the maximum and/or minimums of functions.  Calculus methods used to have a more important role in the every day use of optimizaton.  It now has been largely supplanted by computers.  However, in areas such as theoretical physics these techniques are still used.

Note that we will skip section 5.4.