A First Course in Calculus

The first course in Analysis, which follows calculus, along with other courses, such as differential equations and elementary linear algebra, in the curricu­ lum, presents special pedagogical challenges. There is a change of stress from computational manipulation to "proof. " Indeed, the course can become more a course in Logic than one in Analysis. Many students, caught short by a weak command of the means of mathematical discourse and unsure of what is expected of them, what "the game" is, suffer bouts of a kind of mental paralysis.

The purpose of a first course in calculus is to teach the student the basic notions of derivative and integral, and the basic techniques and applica­ tions which accompany them. The very talented students, with an ob­ vious aptitude for mathematics, will rapidly require a course in functions of one real variable, more or less as it is understood by professional is not primarily addressed to them (although mathematicians.

Praise for the first edition:
"..Lang's present book is a source of interesting ideas and brilliant techniques." Acta Scientiarum Mathematicarum
"..It is an admirable straightforward introduction to calculus." Mathematika
This is a reprint of A First Course in Calculus, which has gone through five editions since the early sixties. It covers all the topics traditionally taught in the first-year calculus sequence in a brief and elementary fashion. As sociological and educational conditions have evolved in various ways over the past four decades, it has been found worthwhile to make the original edition available again. The audience consists of those taking the first calculus course, in high school or college. The approach is the one which was successful decades ago, involving clarity, and adjusted to a time when the students' background was not as substantial as it might be. We are now back to those times, so its time to start over again.

The purpose of a first course in calculus is to teach the student the basic notions of derivative and integral, and the basic techniques and applica­ tions which accompany them. The very talented students, with an ob­ vious aptitude for mathematics, will rapidly require a course in functions of one real variable, more or less as it is understood by professional is not primarily addressed to them (although mathematicians.

Mathematics is the music of science, and real analysis is the Bach of mathematics. There are many other foolish things I could say about the subject of this book, but the foregoing will give the reader an idea of where my heart lies. The present book was written to support a first course in real analysis, normally taken after a year of elementary calculus. Real analysis is, roughly speaking, the modern setting for Calculus, "real" alluding to the field of real numbers that underlies it all. At center stage are functions, defined and taking values in sets of real numbers or in sets (the plane, 3-space, etc.) readily derived from the real numbers; a first course in real analysis traditionally places the emphasis on real-valued functions defined on sets of real numbers.

Modern Algebra for Group Theory, Linear Algebra, Discrete Mathematics, Cryptography, Complex Analysis, Topology Students