Calculus: a limitless perspective

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new foundation for calculus based on approximation concepts that avoids limits, aiming to make calculus more intuitive for students while maintaining rigor.

Contribution

It presents a limit-free approach to calculus using approximation and error functions, providing new derivations of key calculus results.

Findings

Derived differential rules for various functions via approximation

Reformulated fundamental calculus theorems without limits

Proposed a more natural learning framework for students

Abstract

We propose a novel foundation for calculus that focuses on the notion of approximations while avoiding the use of limits altogether. Continuity is defined as approximation at a point, while differentiability is defined as approximation with a linear function. The errors in approximation are defined as a class of functions with certain properties; rules for combining error functions lead to all the familiar results in differential calculus. We believe that this approach is more natural for students while still giving a rigourous foundation to differential calculus. We demonstrate its utility by deriving the basic differential rules for trigonometric, hyperbolic and exponential functions, as well as L'H\^opital's Rule, Taylor polynomials, and the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, all via approximation.