A Tour of the Calculus
Published on 27. April 2011
352 pages
978-0-307-78973-0 (ISBN)
Description
Were it not for the calculus, mathematicians would have no way to describe the acceleration of a motorcycle or the effect of gravity on thrown balls and distant planets, or to prove that a man could cross a room and eventually touch the opposite wall. Just how calculus makes these things possible and in doing so finds a correspondence between real numbers and the real world is the subject of this dazzling book by a writer of extraordinary clarity and stylistic brio. Even as he initiates us into the mysteries of real numbers, functions, and limits, Berlinski explores the furthest implications of his subject, revealing how the calculus reconciles the precision of numbers with the fluidity of the changing universe.
"An odd and tantalizing book by a writer who takes immense pleasure in this great mathematical tool, and tries to create it in others."--New York Times Book Review
"An odd and tantalizing book by a writer who takes immense pleasure in this great mathematical tool, and tries to create it in others."--New York Times Book Review
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David Berlinski
A Tour of the Calculus
Book
01/1996
Pantheon Books
€45.49
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Person
David Berlinksi was born in New York City. He received a B.A. degree from Columbia College and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. He has taught mathematics and philosophy at universities in the United States and France.
Content
- Intro
- About the Author
- Other Books by This Author
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Introduction
- A Note to the Reader
- The Frame of the Book
- Chapter 1 - Masters of the Symbols
- Chapter 2 - Symbols of the Masters
- Chapter 3 - The Black Blossoms of Geometry
- Chapter 4 - Cartesian Coordinates
- Chapter 5 - The Unbearable Smoothness of Motion
- Chapter 6 - Yo
- Chapter 7 - Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Line
- Chapter 8 - The Doctor of Discovery
- Chapter 9 - Real World Rising
- Chapter 10 - Forever Familiar, Forever Unknown
- Chapter 11 - Some Famous Functions
- Chapter 12 - Speed of Sorts
- Chapter 13 - Speed, Strange Speed
- Chapter 14 - Paris Days
- Chapter 15 - Prague Interlude
- Chapter 16 - Memory of Motion
- Chapter 17 - The Dimpled Shoulder
- Chapter 18 - Wrong Way Rolle
- Chapter 19 - The Mean Value Theorem
- Chapter 20 - Tie Song of Igor
- Chapter 21 - Area
- Chapter 22 - Those Legos Vanish
- Chapter 23 - The Integral Wishes to Compute an Area
- Chapter 24 - The Integral Wishes to Become a Function
- Chapter 25 - Between the Living and the Dead
- Chapter 26 - A Farewell to Continuity
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
