The world has finite precision. dx isn't a limit towards zero, it is a limit towards the smallest numerical non-zero. For physics, that's Planck, for engineers it's the least significant bit/figure. All of calculus can be generalized to arbitrary precision, and it's called discrete math. So not even mathematicians agree on this topic.
this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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De dix, boss! De dix!
What is Phil Swift going to do with that chicken?
We teach kids the derive operator being '
or ·
. Then we switch to that writing which makes sense when you can use it properly enough it behaves like a fraction
But df/dx is a fraction, is a ratio between differential of f and standard differential of x. They both live in the tangent space TR, which is isomorphic to R.
What's not fraction is \partial f / \partial x, but likely you already know that. This is akin to how you cannot divide two vectors.
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