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Historical Activities for Calculus - Module 3: Optimization Problems Then and Now

Author(s): 
Gabriela R. Sanchis (Elizabethtown College)

Module 3: Optimization Problems Then and Now

Perhaps the most important application of the differential calculus is the solution of optimization problems, where one wants to find the value of a variable that maximizes or minimizes a certain quantity. In this module we look at the history of some of these problems and their solutions.

References

Paul J. Nahin, When Least is Best: How Mathematicians Discovered Many Clever Ways to Make Things as Small (or as Large) as Possible, Princeton University Press, 2004.

V.M. Tikhomirov, Stories about Maxima and Minima; translated from the Russian by Abe Shenitzer, American Mathematical Society/Mathematical Association of America, 1990.

Gabriela R. Sanchis (Elizabethtown College), "Historical Activities for Calculus - Module 3: Optimization Problems Then and Now," Convergence (June 2014)