Calculus-Help.com Fund Raiser: Buy a Signed TI-nSpire Calculator to Support the Website

Up for sale is a TI-n spire calculator owned and signed by by W. Michael Kelley, the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Calculus and The Humongous Book of Calculus Problems. Is Kelley famous? No. Does the signature actually add any monetary value to the auction? No. In fact, like graffiti, it may actually devalue the sale. That's a chance we're willing to take in a fund raiser to reboot Calculus-Help.com for the new school year: http://www.ebay.com/itm/140846256145.

Every day Mike gets a ton of email from people practically begging to buy advertisements on his site. Actual begging. We feel sorry for these people, because what they don't know is that Mike made a (probably very short-sighted) pledge to never sell ads on the site for any reason. "But can't we just throw money at you?" they ask, usually in the form of impersonal spam. "No," Mike says. "I must hold to a promise, a sacred covenant, that I sometimes really regret making." For those of you thinking, "Sure, there's no advertising, but practically every page is an ad for Mike's books. Doesn't that count as advertising?" understand that I am staring at you with a squinty stare, telepathically asking you to kindly put a sock in it, because you're embarrassing me in front of my new friends--friends that could potentially buy the calculator I ruined by signing it with a silver Sharpie.

To help keep the site free, Mike is auctioning off this calculator, which is lightly used, but it contains all the important pieces (like connection cables, the manuals, an alternate TI-84 face plate (let your dork flag fly) and is in incredible shape. It works like a charm, as you can see by the mundane and meaningless calculations I took a picture of. In case you were wondering if this complicated piece of machinery can add, the answer is a resounding YES! (I may or may not have utilized the full power of this guy.)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/140846256145

Bad News: Summer's Over

Good news: That means MORE MATH CLASSES! Watch this site for new Problems of the Week, beginning soon!

Motion, Position, Definite Integrals, and Bears

Photo by Mackenzie and JohnUnless you live in Chicago, the new Problem of the Week may be unsettling because it is rife with bears. Not the cute kind of bears that get stuck in a rabbit's tree house because they may or may not be morbidly obese. ("Oh, bother.") No. These are the "I'd rather eat you, bones and all, than pretend that I am a cloud to hustle some bees out of their honey" kind of bears. The dangerous kind.

Are you thinking, "This must be an optimization problem, where you are asked to calculate the bear minimum"? If you did think that, please know that I am, as you read this sentence, smiling approvingly and giving you polite golf applause for your clever pun. However, this problem is all about definite integrals, so there is no time for joking around.

Steel yourself for the battle of your life! Attack this problem with your bear hands! But please, before you do, I would like the polite golf applause reciprocated.

Hungry for more math?

Don't fret! The spring semester is starting, so new Problems of the Week will resume February 10!

There's No "U" in Substitution

Photo by Charleston's TheDigitelAre you pro-derivatives? If so, well, our politics may clash in the new Problem of the Week, as it is firmly anti-derivative. Only one tool is allowed to solve this pair of problems--the power rule for integration. No u-substitution allowed!