Differentiation and Integration

Calculus 1 Minute

As I tell my calculus students, differentiation is a science. There are rules to follow, but if you follow them carefully, you can compute the derivative of anything. This leads to one of my favorite classroom activities. However, integration is as much art as science; for example, see my series on different techniques for computing

\displaystyle \int_0^{2\pi} \frac{dx}{\cos^2 x + 2 a \sin x \cos x + (a^2 + b^2) \sin^2 x}

The contrast between differentiation and integration was more vividly illustrated in a recent xkcd webcomic:

Source: https://xkcd.com/2117/

Published by John Quintanilla

I'm a Professor of Mathematics and a University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of North Texas. For eight years, I was co-director of Teach North Texas, UNT's program for preparing secondary teachers of mathematics and science.

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