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There are two branches of calculus: differential calculus and integral calculus. Integral calculus is a method used to determine the area under the curve of a given function. Most of the time, it isn't useful to think of this as a literal computation of area. Instead, it is useful for determining how the results of a function accumulate with respect to a given variable. Integral calculus is used to answer questions like the one shown graphically in Figure A.1.
There is also differential calculus, which is a method used to determine how the value of a given function changes with respect to a given variable. In basic terms, this is the slope of a function at a certain point along the curve. Differential calculus is used to answer questions like the one shown in Figure A.2.
In this appendix, I will only talk about differential calculus because you need it to compute the slopes of curves and the normals of surfaces. I talk briefly about integral calculus in some of the chapters.
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