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3Blue1Brown Series

3Blue1Brown Series Essence of calculus

Essence of calculus Plot

The goal here is to make calculus feel like something that you yourself could have discovered.

3Blue1Brown Series Essence of calculus aired on April 28th, 2017.

Essence of calculus Episodes

1. Essence of calculus

April 28th, 2017

In this first video of the series, we see how unraveling the nuances of a simple geometry question can lead to integrals, derivatives, and the fundamental theorem of calculus.

2. The paradox of the derivative

April 29th, 2017

Derivatives center on the idea of change in an instant, but change happens across time while an instant consists of just one moment. How does that work?

3. Derivative formulas through geometry

April 30th, 2017

A few derivative formulas, such as the power rule and the derivative of sine, demonstrated with geometric intuition.

4. Visualizing the chain rule and product rule

May 1st, 2017

A visual explanation of what the chain rule and product rule are, and why they are true.

5. What's so special about Euler's number e?

May 2nd, 2017

What is e? And why are exponentials proportional to their own derivatives?

6. Implicit differentiation, what's going on here?

May 3rd, 2017

Implicit differentiation can feel weird, but what's going on makes much more sense once you view each side of the equation as a two-variable function, f(x, y).

7. Limits, L'Hopital's rule, and epsilon delta definitions

May 4th, 2017

Formal derivatives, the epsilon-delta definition, and why L'Hôpital's rule works.

8. Integration and the fundamental theorem of calculus

May 5th, 2017

What is an integral? How do you think about it?

9. What does area have to do with slope?

May 6th, 2017

Integrals are used to find the average of a continuous variable, and this can offer a perspective on why integrals and derivatives are inverses, distinct from the one shown in the last video.

10. Higher order derivatives

May 7th, 2017

A very quick primer on the second derivative, third derivative, etc.

11. Taylor series

May 7th, 2017

Taylor polynomials are incredibly powerful for approximations, and Taylor series can give new ways to express functions.

12. What they won't teach you in calculus

May 19th, 2018

A visual for derivatives which generalizes more nicely to topics beyond calculus.