Mathematical analysis facts for kids

A strange attractor arising from a differential equation. Differential equations are an important area of mathematical analysis with many applications to science and engineering.

Mathematical analysis is a part of mathematics. It is often shortened to analysis. It looks at functions, sequences and series. These have useful properties and characteristics that can be used in engineering. The mathematical analysis is about continuous functions, differential calculus and integration.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Isaac Newton developed most of the basis of mathematical analysis.

Parts of mathematical analysis

Limits

An example for mathematical analysis is limits. Limits are used to see what happens very close to things. Limits can also be used to see what happens when things get very big. For example, $\frac{1}{n}$ is never zero, but as n gets bigger $\frac{1}{n}$ gets close to zero. The limit of $\frac{1}{n}$ as n gets bigger is zero. It is usually said "The limit of $\frac{1}{n}$ as n goes to infinity is zero". It is written as $\lim_{n\to\infty} \frac{1}{n}=0$ .

The counterpart would be ${2} \times {n}$ . When the ${n}$ gets bigger, the limit goes to infinity. It is written as $\lim_{n\to\infty} {{2}} \times{n}=\infty$ .

The fundamental theorem of algebra can be proven from some basic results in complex analysis. It says that every polynomial $f(x)$ with real or complex coefficients has a complex root. A root is a number x which gives a solution $f(x)=0$ . Some of these roots may be the same.

Differential calculus

Main page: Differential calculus

The function $f(x) = {m}{x} + {c}$ is a line. The ${m}$ shows the slope of the function and the ${c}$ shows the position of the function on the ordinate. With two points on the line, it is possible to calculate the slope ${m}$ with:

$m = \frac{y_1 - y_0}{x_1 - x_0}$ .

A function of the form $f(x) = x^2$ , which is not linear, cannot be calculated like above. It is only possible to calculate the slope by using tangents and secants. The secant passes through two points and when the two points get closer, it turns into a tangent.

The new formula is $m = \frac{f(x_1) - f(x_0)}{x_1 - x_0}$ .

This is called difference quotient. The $x_1$ gets now closer to $x_0$ . This can be expressed with the following formula:

$f'(x) = \lim_{x\rightarrow x_0}\frac{f(x) - f(x_0)}{x - x_0}$ .

The result is called derivative or slope of f at the point ${x}$ .

Integration

Main page: Integration

The integration is about the calculation of areas.

The symbol $\int_{a}^{b} f(x)\, \mathrm{d}x$

is read as "the integral of f, from a to b" and refers to the area between the x-axis, the graph of function f, and the lines x=a and x=b. The $a$ is the point where the area should start and the $b$ where the area ends.

Other pages

Some topics in analysis are:

Calculus

Some useful ideas in analysis are: