Skip to main content

Calculus and Fun

I found a "bed-time tales" version of Calculus recently and am thrilled why i did not read it while my school days or atleast in college.

The book is titled "What Is Calculus About?" by Warwick Sawyer.
http://www.amazon.com/What-Calculus-About-Mathematical-Library/dp/0883856026

Some quotes include:
"Mathematicians tend to be uninterested in the engineering applications and ignorant of them. Engineers tend to be ignorant of mathematics since l900 ... I have looked through the 1962 volume of SIAM (Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics) and in the first 350 pages of that, covering about 24 papers, I have tried to access the kind of mathematics being used . . . (Problems in Teaching Mathematics in Schools and Colleges and Universities.)"

Another nice one about calculus goes like this "The basic problem of differential calculus is the following:
we are given a rule for finding where an object is at any time, and are asked to find out how fast it is moving. (p. 12l)"

Guess my next search for a book will be "Mathematician's delight" by W. Sawyer and perhaps Steven Strogatz's "The Calculus of Friendship: What a Teacher and a Student Learned about Life while Corresponding about Math".

until next..

shyamd

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

From Khalil Gibran's "the Prophet" : On Work

You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite. When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison? Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune. But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life, And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret. But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written. You have been told also that...

Virtual Labs – A platform for remote e-learning

India has been constantly growing mobilization of resources and introducing new initiatives to improve accessibility and enhance education in the University sector in the last decades and progress has been made with considerable variations [1]. Most universities in both urban and rural areas are striving to achieve good quality education with their major limitations being organizing or accessing a standard laboratory environment and lack of technically skilled personnel in the field of biotechnology education [2]. Also, majority of schools in remote areas lack good teachers, good laboratories and other facilities for teaching [3]. Laboratory experiences are vital components in teaching biology courses to apply the theoretical knowledge to practice, in fields such as biotechnology, physical sciences and chemical sciences. To revolutionize the problems in the current trend of education, virtual laboratories are becoming a new technology that have a promising role in supporting the ed...

The Biology Behind the Milk of Human Kindness

Original version here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/science/24angier.html By NATALIE ANGIER Published: November 23, 2009 As the festival of mandatory gratitude looms into view, allow me to offer a few suggestions on what, exactly, you should be thankful for. Be thankful that, on at least one occasion, your mother did not fend off your father with a pair of nunchucks, but instead allowed enough contact to facilitate your happy conception. Be thankful that when you go to buy a pale, poultrylike entity, the grocery clerk will accept your credit card in good faith and even return it with a heroic garble of your last name. Be grateful for the empathetic employee working the United Airlines ticket counter the day after Thanksgiving, who understands why you must leave town today, this very minute, lest someone pull out the family nunchucks. Above all, be thankful for your brain’s supply of oxytocin, the small, celebrated peptide hormone that, by the looks of it, help...