Math 116, Calculus II

In the first half of Calculus II, you will learn additional antidifferentiation techniques and additional applications of integration, thereby gaining a deeper understanding of integrals. You will learn additional techniques for finding limits and explore more deeply and with more precision the notions of limit and convergence. Students are often surprised or intrigued by some of the finite-versus-infinite examples that arise here.

The other half of Calculus II covers infinite sequences and series. Some of the questions that arise in this part of the course are: What do we mean by a sum with infinitely many summands, such as 1+1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + .... or such as 1-1+1-1+1 - ......? If you eat half a cake and then half of what's left and then half of what's left after that and so on, do you finish the cake? How does your calculator compute the sine of 32 degrees? Is there such a thing as a polynomial of degree infinity and what does "infinity" mean in this context? Both concrete and abstract, this portion of the course gives students an opportunity to strengthen their reasoning skills as well as to learn some important computational techniques.

Prerequisite: Math 115, or the equivalent.
Distribution: Mathematical Modeling

• Megan Kerr mkerr@wellesley.edu
• Department of Mathematics
• Date Created: October 26, 1994
• Last Modified: June 27, 2005
• Expires: June 30, 2006