Introduction to Derivatives! Let's do some Calculus!

 Calculus is the mathematics of changing quantities. And one of the primary 'tools' for doing this is something called a Derivative. As usual, this is just the fancy name for a certain type of slope - the slope of a tangent line to a curve. 

It will seem weird, perhaps, to talk about slopes of curves. But this is just what we can do. And it might not seem like much at first, but the applications of this idea are vast, and we will figure some of that out over time. 

Keep in mind as you watch the video, that as far as the math goes, we are only using the normal slope equation, slope = rise/run. And then, the single step that changes a normal slope into a derivative, is a limit of two points on the curve getting unimaginably close to each other! 

But let's first define slope and see how to figure it out for a simple curve, a basic parabola. Check it out!