Plot derivative of a function

[cyrille de brébisson]

Hello

> Math will never be confusing

I beg to differ!

Math is extremly confusing. Past the very basic things (and even then...), most definitions are not agreed upon between mathematicians, and they all play with slightly different, generally unspoken rules depending on their field and even locale.

Examples:
- -6 is a number (a negative number) the square of a number is the number times the number. and yet -6² is -36!

- 3 points at the same location is a triangle... or not, depending on where you are from

- depending on your locale, in right to left writing countries, PI is written 3.14159 or 95141.3 your job to figure out which number is actually ment (PI is easy, but if you read 1.5, you do not know if it is 1.5 or 5.1!)

- 0^0 is undefined or 1 (some other say 0, but they are a minority)

- Matrix + scalar is mathematicaly non-sensical.. even then, I have seen it often, both in math packages and in math texts to say: add scalar to every item in the matrix.

- Modulo is not formally defined (at least not in a consistent manner) for negative numbers.

- Addition is not associative in numerical math!

etc, etc, etc...

These are all mathematic confusion which, when you move from one part of math to another cause confusions, errors and mis-understanding... In our field, where do do touch multiple levels, locals, type of users, we see this all the time...

Cyrille
Un-Obfulscating since 1998