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When I was like 14 years old one one my math teachers explained to us what calculus was using zero equations. He made everything look really easy.

At college, it was the complete opposite. My professor started with limits and convergence, didn't even bother to explain why we were studying the subject.

Kudos for people who actually explain things.



My high school physics teacher explained calculus to me by plotting a velocity curve, then saying the tangential line at a point (derivative) is acceleration and the area from 0 to that point under the curve (integral) was the distance travelled. Made all of calculus very easy for me to grok going forward.


I missed the day where the word tangent must have been explained, then failed basic trigonometry and felt like an idiot for the rest of high school.


I never got a high level explanation for what calculus was because the business model of my school involved having a passing rate below 30%. If the passing rate was too high, teachers got fired no matter what the reason was.




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