MA 105 : Calculus

D1 - Lecture 1

Sandip Singh

Department of Mathematics

Autumn 2023, IIT Bombay, Mumbai

Aims of the course

First, welcome to IIT Bombay.

I To briefly review the calculus of functions of one variable and

to teach the calculus of functions of several variables.

For details about the syllabus, tutorials, assignments, quizzes,

exams and procedures for evaluation please refer to the course
booklet which is available on moodle: https://moodle.iitb.ac.in
The emphasis of this course will be on the underlying ideas and
methods rather than intricate problem solving (though there will
be some of that too). The aim is to get you to think about
calculus, in particular, and mathematics in general.
Syllabus

I Convergence of sequences and series, power series.

I Review of limits, continuity, differentiability.
I Mean value theorem, Taylor’s theorem, maxima and minima.
I Riemann integrals, fundamental theorem of calculus, improper
integrals, applications to area, volume.
I Partial derivatives, gradient and directional derivatives, chain
rule, maxima and minima, Lagrange multipliers.
I Double and triple integration, Jacobians and change of
variables formula.
I Parametrization of curves and surfaces, vector fields, line and
surface integrals.
I Divergence and curl, theorems of Green, Gauss, and Stokes.
Sequences
Definition: A sequence in a set X is a function f : N → X , that is,
a function from the set of natural numbers to X .
In this course X will usually be a subset of (or equal to) R, R2 or
R3 , though we will also have occasion to consider sequences of
functions sometimes. In later mathematics courses X may be the
set of complex numbers C, vector spaces (whatever those maybe),
the set of continuous functions on an interval C([a, b]) or other
sets of functions.
Rather than denoting a sequence by a function, it is often
customary to describe a sequence by listing the first few elements

a1 , a2 , a3 , . . .

or, more generally by describing the nth term an .

Note that we write an rather than a(n). When we want to talk
about the sequence as a whole we sometimes write {an }∞
n=1 , but
more often we once again just write an .
Examples of sequences
1. an = n (here we can take X = N ⊂ R if we want and f is just
the identity function).
2. an = n1 (here we can take X = Q ⊂ R if we want, where Q
denotes the set of rational numbers, or we can take X = R
itself).
3. an = sin n1 (here the values taken by an are irrational

numbers, so it is best to take X = R).

4. an = nn!n .
5. an = n1/n .
6. sn = ni=0 r i , for some r such that 0 ≤ r < 1.
P

7. an = n2 , n1 (here X = R2 or X = Q2 ).

8. fn (x) = cos nx (here X is the space of continuous functions

on any interval [a, b] or even on R).
j
9. sn (x) = nj=0 xj! , or writing it out
P
2 n
sn (x) = 1 + x + x2! + · · · + xn! . Once again X is a space of
functions, for instance the space of continuous functions on R.
Monotonic sequences
For the moment we will concentrate on sequences in R.
Definition: A sequence is said to be a monotonically increasing
sequence if an ≤ an+1 for all n ∈ N.
Definition: A sequence is said to be a monotonically decreasing
sequence if an ≥ an+1 for all n ∈ N.
A monotonic sequence is one that is either monotonically
increasing or monotonically decreasing.
From the examples in the previous slide, Example 1 (an = n) is a
monotonically increasing sequence, Example 2 (an = 1/n) is a

monotonically decreasing sequence, while Example 3 (an = sin n1 )
is also monotonically decreasing. How about Examples 4 and 5?
n!
In Example 4 we notice that if an = nn ,

(n + 1)! (n + 1)nn
an+1 = (n+1)
= an × ≤ an ,
(n + 1) (n + 1)(n+1)
so the sequence is monotonically decreasing.
Eventually monotonic sequences
In Example 5 (an = n1/n ), we note that

a1 = 1 < 21/2 = a2 < 31/3 = a3 ,

(raise both a2 and a3 to the sixth power to see that 23 < 32 ).

However, 31/3 > 41/4 > 51/5 . So what do you think happens as n
gets larger?
In fact, an+1 ≤ an , for all n ≥ 3. Prove this fact as an exercise.
Such a sequence is called an eventually monotonically decreasing
sequence, that is, the sequence becomes monotonically decreasing
after some stage. One can similarly define eventually
monotonically increasing sequences.
For any fixed non-negative value of r , Example 6 (sn = nj=0 r j )
P
gives a monotonically increasing sequence, while Pfor any fixed
j
non-negative value of x, the sequence sn (x) = nj=0 xj! in Example
9 also gives a monotonically increasing sequence.
Preliminaries
While all of you are familiar with limits, most of you have probably
not worked with a rigorous definition. We will be more interested
in limits of functions (which is what arise in the differential
calculus), but limits of sequences are closely related to the former,
and occur in their own right in the theory of Riemann integration.
So what does it mean for a sequence to tend to a limit? Let us
look at the sequence an = 1/n2 . We wish to study the behaviour
of this sequence as n gets large. Clearly as n gets larger and larger,
1/n2 gets smaller and smaller and seems to approach the value 0,
or more precisely
the distance between 1/n2 and 0 becomes smaller and smaller.
In fact (and this is the key point), by choosing n large enough, we
can make the distance between 1/n2 and 0 smaller than any
prescribed quantity.
Let us examine the above statement, and then try and quantify it.
More precisely:
The distance between 1/n2 and 0 is given by |1/n2 − 0| = 1/n2 .
Suppose I require that 1/n2 be less that 0.1 (that is, 0.1 is my
prescribed quantity). Clearly, 1/n2 < 1/10 for all n > 3.
Similarly, if I require that 1/n2 be less than 0.0001(= 10−4 ), this
will be true for all n > 100.
We can do this for any number, no matter how small. If  > 0 is
any number,
√
1/n2 <  ⇐⇒ 1/ < n2 ⇐⇒ n > 1/ .

In other words, given any  > 0, we can always find a natural

√
number N (in this case, any N > 1/ ) such that for all n > N,
|1/n2 − 0| < .
The rigorous definition of a limit
Motivated by the previous example, we define the limit as follows.
Definition: A sequence an tends to a limit `, if for any  > 0, there
exists N ∈ N such that
|an − `| < 
whenever n > N.
This is what we mean when we write

lim an = `.
n→∞

Equivalently, we say that the sequence {an }∞n=1 converges to a

limit `. If we just want to say that the sequence has a limit
without specifying what that limit is, we simply say {an }∞
n=1
converges, or that it is convergent.
A sequence that does not converge is said to diverge, or to be
divergent.