> I did not like, and did not understand, epsilons and deltas.
It's nice to have this perspective validated by someone like Serre! I felt like I was missing something when I first encountered that formalism. In fact, all of my introductory calculus classes sucked and turned me off of math for a few years.
Nonstandard analysis [0] [1] uses infinitesimals but is still completely rigorous. I haven't ever really used nonstandard analysis myself, but there's a fairly well-regarded textbook available online [2].
jey · · focus · HN ↗
It's nice to have this perspective validated by someone like Serre! I felt like I was missing something when I first encountered that formalism. In fact, all of my introductory calculus classes sucked and turned me off of math for a few years.
zahlman · · focus · HN ↗
gucci-on-fleek · · focus · HN ↗
[0]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonstandard_analysis" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonstandard_analysis
[1]: <a href="https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/51453/is-non-standard-analysis-worth-learning" rel="nofollow">https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/51453/is-non-standa...
[2]: <a href="https://people.math.wisc.edu/%7Ehkeisler/keislercalc-06-03-26.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://people.math.wisc.edu/%7Ehkeisler/keislercalc-06-03-2...
btilly · · focus · HN ↗
The formalism is very simple symbolically. But the mathematical machine behind it is very complex.