A curated collection of interactive calculus explorers for students seeing these ideas for the first time. Each topic is a standalone HTML page: pick a preset, move one control, and watch the mathematics change immediately.
The gallery is organized into four learning groups:
- Core calculus: shell and washer methods, Taylor series, end behavior, Riemann sums, and polar area
- Vectors and fields: dot product, cross product, curl, divergence, and line integrals
- Multivariable calculus: Lagrange multipliers, gradient descent, tangent planes, double integrals, streamlines, and contour plots
- Differential equations: Euler's method
The project uses color semantically: gold marks the active teaching focus, sequential blue–violet–gold ramps show ordered magnitude or height, and restrained blue/brick diverging ramps show negative versus positive field behavior.
No build step or package install is required. Start a static server from the project directory:
python3 -m http.server 8765Then open http://localhost:8765. Most pages also work when index.html is opened directly, though a local server is more reliable for CDN-loaded modules.
- One self-contained HTML file per topic
- Vanilla JavaScript with Three.js r160 or p5.js where appropriate
- KaTeX for readable mathematical notation
- Preset-driven interactions plus custom equations on selected explorers
- No framework, bundler, or runtime dependency installation
The landing page is index.html. Preview images are used for the shell, washer, and Taylor-series cards; the remaining cards use inline SVG illustrations.
- Show concrete numbers instead of unexplained abstractions.
- Make the first useful interaction obvious.
- Keep mathematical notation typographically correct.
- Use color, labels, and shape together so meaning never depends on hue alone.
- Prefer a focused teaching model over a generic 3D object viewer.
MIT