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Calculus Diaries: A Year Discovering How Maths Can Help You Lose Weight, Win In Vegas And Survive A Zombie Apocalypse. Jennifer Ouellette (2011)

by Jennifer Ouellette(Favorite Author)

3.39 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0715641433 (ISBN13: 9780715641439)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Duckworth Publishing

review 1: Oulette's best writing begins while tying all of the book's concepts together at the end of the last chapter: "I will never listen to ocean waves or view a beautiful sunset in quite the same way again. That is perhaps the greatest gift one can gain by delving into calculus: It is a whole new way of looking at the world, accessible only through the realm of mathematics. I looked out over the ocean that evening and saw a picture-perfect sunset, but there was so much more that I had missed. [A physicist looks] out onto the same scene and [sees] the rich complexity of nature expressed in mathematical symbols, the fundamental abstract order lying just beneath the surface." This book is not heavy on the math and could have benefited from a few more illustrations of the mathemat... moreics that were presented, but it is a very well written chronicle of how to recognize that mathematics applies to just about everything. The epilogue sums up exactly how I feel about learning mathematics and the necessity to explore ideas that interest you. The only way to connect the abstract concepts, and have that "this is that" moment, is play around with them. I'll be recommending this book to anybody who wants to explore science and physics but has struggled with seeing the utility of math beyond arithmetic. It can easily be an inspiration for aspiring math majors.
review 2: Calculus has been beyond me since my only pre-calc class in high school. Even with this really clear account, I'm still not crystal clear about derivatives and integrals, but after the first chapters explaining these basics, the rest of the book presented really fun reading, relating calculus (even for those of us who don't understand it clearly) to real world applications from calculating shapes and speeds, etc of log flume and other Disneyland rides, the rate of infection from zombies, odds of winning at Vegas, and how to calculate waves for surfboarding. The author tells the background stories of the mathematicians and scientists who "discovered" so many of these formulae with skill so that each account is entertaining, as well as informational. less

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