Thomas' calculus

Thomas’ calculus

1.Preliminaries

Overview

This chapter reviews the basic ideas you need to start calculus. The topic include

1. the real number system,
2. Catesian coordinates in the plane,
3. straight lines, parabolas,
4. circles,
5. functions,
6. and trigonometry.

We also discuss the use of

1. graphing calculators
2. computer graphing software.

Real Numbers

Real numbers are numbers that can be expressed as decimals.
The real numbers can be represented geometrically as points on a number line called the real line.

We use the symbol $\real$ denotes the real number or the real line

We have three categories of the real number properties.

algebraic properties