Using CAS for the
visualization of some basic concepts
in calculus of several variables.
Ungsana Chundang
Department of Mathematics
King Mongkut 's Institute of
Technology Thonburi
iungdang@cc.kmitt.ac.th
Abstract:
In teaching calculus of several
variables for engineerig students
or science students one of the important
aims is to create a good comprehension
of the basic concepts appearing
in these topics. This comprehension
should give the students the capability
to use their knowledge in solving
application problems and/or in their
further studies. In many cases the
introduction of a new concept can
be done by using a good visualization.
A CAS with it's rich variety of
capabilities, especially graphic
capabilities, makes it possible
to use dynamical visualization in
the introduction of such new concepts.
In this paper an introduction
of the concepts of level line, gradient,
directional derivative using dynamical
visualization is presented. Finally
an extremum problem with a constraint
is treated by dynamical visualization
to get the Lagrange multiplier.
Full paper in PDF
(~116K)
|
