Discovering Calculus Calculus was discovered at a time when a large number of scientists were studying optics.

Specically, they were trying to understand and predict what happens to a ray of light when it passes through a lens or reects o of a mirror especially when the lens or mirror is curved. For example, to the right, there is an accurate diagram of a typical glass lens, with a ray of light entering the lens through one point and leaving through another.
ray of light
tan

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gen t

line

As it turns out, whether a ray of light hits a point on the curved surface of a lens, or of a mirror, there is one piece of information about that point, on the curve of the lens or mirror, that can be used to predict the new direction of the ray of light. What we need is shown as a dashed line in the diagram above it is the line tangent to the curve at the point that is hit by the ray of light.
2 1

x
4 3 2 1 1 1 2 3 4

To be more specic, lets say that the lens we are studying, like many simple lenses, can be described by two parabolas, as shown here. The equation for the top part of the lens shown 1 here is y = 1 x2 . In other words, well say 9 that the top part of the lens is the graph of 1 the function f (x) = 1 x2 . 9
2 1

Suppose a ray of light hits the point (2, 5/9) on the parabola. The most dicult step in nding an equation for the line tangent to the parabola at this point is determining the slope of the tangent line. We can nd an approximate value for that slope by choosing a second point on the parabola, close to the one we are interested in, and calculating the slope between the two points. For example, if we choose the point on the parabola where x = 5/2 and y = f (5/2) = 11/36, we can nd that the slope between (2, 5/9) and (5/2, 11/36) is 1/2. So the slope of the tangent line at (2, 5/9) should be approximately 1/2.

(2, 5/9)

x
1 1 1 2 3 4

(2, f (2)) (2 + x, f (2 + x) )

We would get a better approximation for the slope of the tangent line at (2, 5/9) if we chose a second point on the parabola even closer to (2, 5/9). Lets say we pick a very, very small number and add it to 2. The very, very small number is usually referred to as x, which is pronounced delta x. If x is a very, very small number, then (2 + x, f (2 + x) ) is a point on the parabola that is very close to (2, 5/9). The smaller x is, the better our approximation for the slope of the tangent line at (2, 5/9) will be.

Discovering Calculus

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So what is the slope between the points (2, 5/9) and (2 + x, f (2 + x) )? Using the famous slope formula from algebra, f (2 + x) 5 rise 9 slope = = . run 2 + x 2 1 Remember that in this example, f (x) = 1 x2 . Using this information, we can rewrite the slope 9 this way:
5 1 1 f (2 + x) 9 (2 + x)2 9 = 2 + x 2 x 5 9

4 9

1 9 (2 + x)2 . x

Using a few algebra skills, we can simplify this awful fraction:

4 9

1 (2 + x)2 4 (2 + x)2 4 (4 + 4 x + (x)2 ) 4 x (x)2 4 x 9 = = = = . x 9 x 9 x 9 x 9

What we have found, after all this work, is that no matter what number x we choose, the slope between the points (2, 5/9) and (2 + x, f (2 + x) ) is (4 x)/9. As pointed out before, the smaller the number x is, the closer we will get to the slope of the line tangent to the graph of f (x) at (2, 5/9). But if x is an extremely small number, (4 x)/9 is practically equal 1 to 4/9. So the slope of the line tangent to the graph of f (x) = 1 x2 at the point (2, 5/9) 9 must be 4/9. Using a graphing calculator or some other graphing program, you can graph the parabola given by 1 y = 1 x2 , and also graph the line with slope 9 4/9 that passes through the point (2, 5/9). These graphs are shown to the right. From the graphs, it appears that our calculations are correct, and the line is indeed tangent to the parabola. y
2

(2, 5/9)

x
1 1 1 2 3 4

To nd the slope of the tangent line, we used the fact that if x is close to zero, (4 x)/9 is close to 4/9. A mathematician would say As x approaches zero, (4 x)/9 approaches 4/9. Another way to say this is The limit of (4 x)/9, as x approaches zero, is 4/9. We have found that the slope of the line tangent to the graph of f (x) at the point (2, 5/9) is 4/9. In mathematical terminology, we can say The derivative of f (x), when x = 2, is 4/9. We will learn much more about limits in Chapter 1, and about derivatives and tangent lines in Chapters 2 and 3.