In Isaac Newton's day, one of the biggest problems was poor navigation
at sea. Before calculus was developed, the stars were vital for
navigation. Shipwrecks occurred because the ship was not where the
captain thought it should be. There was not a good enough understanding
of how the Earth, stars and planets moved with respect to each other.
Calculus (differentiation and integration) was developed to improve this
understanding. Differentiation and integration can help us to solve
many types of real-world problems in our day to day life. We use the
derivative to determine the maximum and minimum values of particular
functions (e.g. cost, strength, amount of material used in a building,
profit, loss, etc.). Derivatives are met in many engineering and
science problems, especially when modelling the behaviour of moving
objects.
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