Author Description

This book is a complete course in differential calculus of one variable, based on lectures given by the author at UC San Diego during Spring Quarter 2021. It starts with a review of precalculus concepts, introduces the notions of limits and continuity, and then defines the derivative and gives the standard applications to optimization and graphing. Rather than focusing on proofs, the text attempts to give an intuitive understanding of the concepts. But the proofs are there! In some cases, the proofs are put off until we can give more natural or more enlightening explanations. Additionally, every lecture is accompanied by exercises that are intended to probe understanding and show interesting applications to the sciences.