Hacker News Books

Just finished Joy of X and Infinite Powers by Steven Strogatz and both are excellent popular mathematics books that don't appear on this list (both published after this article was).

About the author (from the bottom of the article):

> Steven Strogatz is professor of mathematics at Cornell and author of the forthcoming “Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe,” from which this essay is adapted.

Infinite Powers by Steven Strogatz would be a much better option.

I’d taken calc and linear algebra in college but I retained little and had not used either in 15+ years.

I took this class 3-4 years ago and got a lot out of it.

I also highly recommend Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe by Strogatz

I just stumbled upon Infinite Powers in B&N, and after reading a bit, decided to buy it. Loving it so far. I’ve been curious about calculus for a long time now, since I’ve never taken a formal class on it and am now in a graduate CS program, I feel like I’m missing the deeper understanding of many of the formulas that are presented.

My plan is to get through it to get some background on the main ideas of calculus, then work through khan academy and/or read through Aleksandrov’s Mathematics Contents/Meaning.

If anyone knows of active forums/q&a/online practice for self-learning calculus, it’d be a huge help if you could share.

The subheading does say this:

This adapted book excerpt from Infinite Powers ...

So it might not be correct to say the article is promoting the book, rather, the article is adapted from parts of the book.

I suggest Infinite Powers by Steven Strogatz. It doesn't matter if they already took a calculus course, I guarantee it's a much better way to make them appreciate the the subject than any textbook. And if they don't know calculus yet, that just makes it even better!

If I'd read this book as a teenager, maybe I would've passed Calc I on my first try as opposed to my third. With a C-.

Understanding the history of science gives a sense how progress works when dealing with things extremely complex .

Here are 3 good starting points.

1. The little book of psychology (penguin randomhouse) charts the important milestones and people in psyc. (Michael Lewis's Undoing Project not many like but it shows why understanding complex non obvious things take time)

2. Faraday and Maxwell by Nancy Forbes charts how long and why it took long to stumble upon EM field theories.

3. Infinite Powers by Steven Stogratz charts the history of calculus. Which shows why it took thousands of years to get to Newton's Laws.

Textbooks present the math without showing people the journey. Psychology and Sociology are going through those same moments Physics and Maths witnessed when new discoveries suddenly start exploding.