Doing Calculus with Scientific Notebook by Darel Hardy and Carol Walker was published by Brooks/Cole in 1997
Carol and I wrote Doing Calculus with Scientific Notebook to show students and their instructors how Scientific Notebook could be used to better understand and do calculus.
When you have access to Scientific Notebook or any other advanced computational tool, your instructor will expect more than simple answers. Experimentation, solution, verification, and communication are all crucial components in mathematical problem solving. You will find mathematics to be useful only to the extent that you understand the mathematics. If steps leading to your solution seem mysterious and magical, your solution is flawed and your answer may or may not be correct. Expect to understand what you are doing; read, experiment, and ask questions when there is too much magic involved. A computer algebra system can perform the algebraic and numerical calculations involved in a solution, but the logic behind the solution is in your hands.
Scientific Notebook does not change the way you do mathematics. It acts as an amplifier, letting you do more mathematics and helping you to enjoy mathematics; but it can also amplify mistakes. Take responsibility for your answers. We provide tools to help you do this—plotting tools and other techniques that allow you to test your own work and to validate your answers. The habit of always testing your own work and validating your answers will help you develop confidence in your ability to do mathematics and will prove useful when you work in real-life situations that do not come with built-in answer keys.
Modern mathematical notation has been developed specifically to simplify the communication of complicated ideas. As you become more familiar with the symbolism in mathematics, you will become comfortable with it and appreciate its ability to express ideas succinctly. It is important to be able to express these ideas in words; however, you will find that complicated ideas expressed entirely in words can be much more difficult to comprehend than the same ideas presented symbolically. With Scientific Notebook, you have the advantage of using standard mathematical notation directly, rather than being concerned with a specialized syntax specific to the system.
We believe you will adapt quickly to the use of Scientific Notebook, even though the environment may be somewhat different from that of your prior experience with technology. Scientific Notebook provides a logical and efficient method for entering mathematical expressions and extensive menus that minimize the number of things you need to learn and remember in order to be a productive user. As with any new system, you will need to invest some time and energy at the beginning to become a comfortable user of Scientific Notebook. Doing calculus with Scientific Notebook through these activities will help you learn the technicalities of Scientific Notebook as the need arises. Technical features of Scientific Notebook are explained in the on-line Help for convenient reference.