While flipping through some calculus textbooks, I noticed that there are fancy long "S" symbols (or is it f?) I have never seen these symbols before!
What are they called and what do they mean? They're placed on the left side of numbers. It looks like a long swirly s.
2007-12-02 16:21:32 · 1 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Mathematics
What does the S symbol mean?
2007-12-02 16:27:21 · update #1
These are called integratiion signs and are shown in text books as ∫
Integration is the reverse process of differentiation.
Example
(d/dx)(3x²) = 6x
∫ 6x dx = 6x² / 2 = 3x²
2007-12-02 23:42:44 · answer #1 · answered by Como 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Calculus Symbol
2016-10-16 04:48:38 · answer #2 · answered by kennerly 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Eric E needed to add that f(x) has to be non-negative for it to be an area and that f has to be considered as a height . If f(x) represents a velocity then the integral is distance travel from a starting point. Finally the symbol likely came about from considering Riemann SUMS ...S...the integral is a limiting procedure on a sequence of partial sums generated by the Riemann sums for a function f .
2007-12-02 17:45:20 · answer #3 · answered by ted s 7 · 4⤊ 0⤋
The symbol is called the integral symbol. In the Riemann sense when you see the integral of f(x) dx the quantity that this is equal to is the area under the curve f(x) with respect to the x-axis. There are lots of interesting symbols in mathematics and this is but one. :)
2007-12-02 16:26:58 · answer #4 · answered by Eric E 2 · 2⤊ 1⤋
u is a complex number consisting of both a real portion, 2 and an imaginary portion, 3. The imaginary number line runs perpendicular to the real number line. And if what you mean is a little "hat" ^ above the u it means unit vector. It's the smallest quantity of that vector u. u "hat" = u/|u|
2016-03-16 22:45:51 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
That long S stands for solstice.
2007-12-02 16:27:22 · answer #6 · answered by Axis Flip 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋