Wednesday, October 03, 2012

Trig Derivatives in Calculus

I find it fascinating that once you ask a student to find the equation of the tangent line to a trig-type function (say y = x*sin x) at x = pi, they completely blank out on finding a point on the line. What? I plug in pi? That's outrageous! Whoever heard of such a thing? Craziness. I vow to keep hammering away at equations of tangent lines this year. File...

2 comments:

  1. I hit them with pi's and e's almost from day 1. By the AP exam they are as natural to work with as integers.

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  2. this derivation is too complicated for students..
    cool math 4 kids

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