Martin's Press which provides an introduction three preliminary chapters explaining functions, limits, and derivatives an appendix of recreational calculus problems and notes for modern readers. The original text continues to be available as of 2008 from Macmillan and Co., but a 1998 update by Martin Gardner is available from St. Thompson, considered a classic and elegant introduction to the subject. Definitely a must! This book is a good example of how calculus should be taught.If the “curve” happens to be a straight line, the value of d y d x will become greater and greater with the increasing steepness.Ĭalculus Made Easy is a book on infinitesimal calculus originally published in 1910 by Silvanus P. Easy, entertaining reading as stated earlier, the philosophy of the subject is presented in a comprehensible manner.3. ![]() People who want to grasp the essence of calculus, not necessarily for a college course. Read about the binomial theorem before reading this book, though.2. The book uses easy-to-understand language, simple examples, etc. I know about this, because I am guilty of it myself.I recommend this book to people who:1. Alas the true result is that the student is usually left confused, loses interest in the subject, perhaps gives up on a career that he/she otherwise would have succeeded in, etc. But there's always the teacher's pride, which leads him to make it all seem difficult, expecting the student to be amazed at how much the teacher knows. What I found was a book that explains the philosophy of the subject in a very simple manner, making it easy to understand even for people who are not proficient in math.The concepts in Calculus are really simple things as Gardner puts it, "the universe seems to favor simplicity in its fundamental laws". I have been teaching Calculus for the last two years, and I just stumbled across this book a few weeks ago. Though the subjects are frequently isolated for each chapter, Thompson has nonetheless provided insights to the degree that one could synthesize or put together these various concepts to formulate their own interesting problems and procedures.With the great Martin Gardner to revise this classic and to provide further mathematical expositions, Calculus Made Easy is highly recommended for the lover of mathematics as well as the teacher who wants to present mathematics from a better thematic standpoint. It divides into over 20 chapters thorough examples and applications of calculus as well as the development of calculus itself, and everything is surprisingly contained in fewer than 300 pages! Authors of many modern-day calculus textbooks twice its size try to explain the same fundamental concepts but cannot achieve Thompson's levels of triumph.Topics in this work include: limits, maxima, minima, successive differentiation, compound interest, law of organic growth, and more. It's a great book and an absolute must for anyone taking their first stab at calculus, especially if your professor is from Bangledesh and bribed someone to pass the TOEFL.Ĭalculus Made Easy is truly a well-written book. If you're like me, you'll find yourself wondering what all the fuss was about after working through this book. Thompson's relatively down to Earth and casual style helped me get excited about math again. The obviousness of the Fundamental Theorem doesn't make it any less significant, but it does prove that the "hardness" of math is a function of how pretentious the expositor is. Anyone who couldn't "derive it" when needed should probably switch to a career that involves flame broiling and extra cheese. A Definite Integral for instance, which is governed by something audaciously called The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, is subtraction - fricking subtraction. Mathematicians have a habit of making very simple concepts sound more complicated than they are. It's incredible beauty and power comes from it's simplicity. ![]() After reading this book, I realized that calculus is really very simple and is based on a relatively small set of simple rules. This is not a system that often rewards clarity or readable prose. ![]() A textbook author's primary goal is to solicit the approval and support of other academics. ![]() The dirty little secret of the textbook world is that students don't pick textbooks, so meeting a student's needs isn't a publisher's goal. The mathematicians who write textbooks are invariably sadistic cretins with either no aptitude for effective communication or contempt for it.
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