Introduction to calculus

Welcome to the Introduction to calculus module. This module provides an overview of some key concepts in calculus, including limits, differentiation, integration, differential equations and vectors.

You may wish to work your way through the entirety of the module in the order provided, or you may wish to jump to certain pages or sections of the module.

Your feedback on this module is very welcome and can be provided at any time on the feedback page, or alternatively for any questions about the module please contact Library-UniSkills@curtin.edu.au

What you will learn

• How to calculate limits using tables of values, and how to determine whether the graph of a function is continuous.
• How to calculate derivatives using limits and using the rules for differentiation, including for two functions using the sum and difference, product, quotient and chain rules.
• How integration can be used to calculate the area under a graph, the difference between definite and indefinite integrals, and the rules for integration including integration by substitution and integration by parts.
• The different types of differential equations and how to solve differential equations using separation of variables.
• How to represent and label vectors in diagrams and separate vectors into components, and how to add and subtract vectors, find the magnitude of a vector, calculate scalar multiples of vectors, convert between polar and Cartesian coordinates when working with vectors, and multiply vectors using the dot product.