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Loading... A Tour of the Calculusby David BerlinskiLibraryThing recommendationsMember recommendationsLoading...
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Incredibly tedious and self-indulgent. Berlinski is trying to convey a sort of mystic profundity he sees in basic mathematical concepts. Apparently this warrants beating the reader over the head on every page with purple prose. There is enough content to keep this book from being a total waste, but I expect many calc-curious readers will find their gag reflexes tested too often to finish. (  )1   JRQ | Mar 29, 2009 |  The prose in this book is ridiculously florid, and he makes far too much of extremely simple topics. I am a secret pop-math addict, and I had to close this book in disgust during a flight when I had nothing else to read. Staring morosely out of an airplane window was a better investment of my time. (  )1 gordinier | Sep 8, 2007 | I read his book Black Mischief some time ago. He is a punk mathematician, with a smart boy attitude that rightly gets him into trouble with academic departments. His math was a neat little memory jolt, but his prose is too florid for my taste. Black Mischief, as I recall, was a sort of punk mathematician pulls one over on businessmen (  )2 neurodrew | Jun 15, 2007 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0679747885, Paperback)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 (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:13 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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