41–50 of 76 posts
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Here is a link from the comments that includes a high-quality PDF of the text instead of page scans: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33283/33283-pdf.pdf?session_i...
If you click through the links, the text has been reset here, only the front page is a complete scan.
Hi. I am author of this website. I hope you like it. I made it public today. It was my favorite math textbook and I think it still can help a lot of people :-)
The beginning calculus book for me is Gilbert Strang's Calculus. https://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/resources/Strang/Edited/Calculus... Calculus Made Easy seems too dumbed down to me.
Do us a favor and delete your comment. This kind of talk can discourage and embarrass people who would otherwise be focused on learning. Just link to the book, which is good, and save us your little puffing yourself up bit. I am sorry but I cannot sit by and watch someone belittle people who would want to learn. edit: sorry, I am a bit high strung today. Defending tomorrow afternoon. Whatever though. the above is sti…
Seriously, +1 on the above -- as someone who has been defeated several times by the calculus terrors preliminary and otherwise, I can say with some confidence that the last thing calc-shy students need is being made to feel dumber.
Down-to-earth books like the one in question are a boon.
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Indeed. They never explained this at school and we were just memorizing and applying formulae having no idea of the meaning. So many years have passed an I've only realized what does the d actually mean some weeks ago and now I see this book explaining it this easy at the very beginning written in 1910!
Hey, there's more! First, why "d"? Well, "d" is for "difference". As in: as x changes from x_1 to x_2, the difference (x_2 - x_1) -- when it's very small. But wait, there's more! The commonly used symbols for finite difference like that is the Greek letter Delta: Δ For a list of values x_1, x_2, x_3, x_4,.. we write Δx_i = (x_i - x_{i-1}). That is, Δx_i is the i'th change . (Side note: an airline had a marketing slog…
One thing that seems to be missing (and wasn't given a lot of attention when I was in school) was the notion that the reals are continuous. Calculus made a lot more sense to me once I internalized how that one simple idea basically serves as the rug that really ties the room together. I've often thought that an interesting treatment would start with differences and sums of integers as approximations, demonstrate thei…
I like Calculus Made Easy because it uses informal infinitesimals. You can make these fully rigorous if you want and they're a much more intuitive technique than epsilon-delta.
eg Something like 'limit(f(x),x->a) = L' is just 'f(x) ≈ L when x ≈ a'
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Hey, there's more! First, why "d"? Well, "d" is for "difference". As in: as x changes from x_1 to x_2, the difference (x_2 - x_1) -- when it's very small. But wait, there's more! The commonly used symbols for finite difference like that is the Greek letter Delta: Δ For a list of values x_1, x_2, x_3, x_4,.. we write Δx_i = (x_i - x_{i-1}). That is, Δx_i is the i'th change . (Side note: an airline had a marketing slog…
Do you realize this comment of yours is worth more than years of studying (high school + Bc.)? Perhaps schools are better at your location but the ones I've attended never explained this, just write that down, this equals that, memorize and f-ck you. Thanks G-d we have the Internet and people like you nowadays...
The beginning calculus book for me is Gilbert Strang's Calculus. https://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/resources/Strang/Edited/Calculus... Calculus Made Easy seems too dumbed down to me.
Do us a favor and delete your comment. This kind of talk can discourage and embarrass people who would otherwise be focused on learning. Just link to the book, which is good, and save us your little puffing yourself up bit. I am sorry but I cannot sit by and watch someone belittle people who would want to learn. edit: sorry, I am a bit high strung today. Defending tomorrow afternoon. Whatever though. the above is sti…
From the book: >I To deliver you from the Preliminary Terrors >The preliminary terror [..] can be abolished once for all by simply stating what is the meaning–in common-sense terms–of the two principal symbols: (1) d, which merely means “a little bit of.” Thus dx means a little bit of x; or du means a little bit of u. (2) ∫, which is merely a long S, and may be called (if you like) “the sum of.” As someone who taught…
How I wish there were books like this written for more topics!
Hi. I am author of this website. I hope you like it. I made it public today. It was my favorite math textbook and I think it still can help a lot of people :-)