A Tour of the Calculus

The sheer poetry of his discussion of the mathematics of calculus makes this book a joy to read. Whether you love math or are just exploring the topic for the first time this is a book you should consider.

I thought I was getting some in-depth insight into calculus, technical insight I missed in my college course. I did get that, but got a lot of back-story re: the history of the development of calculus, which was usually pretty interesting, and also lyrical, allegorical musings on the nature of functions, limits, and calculus itself, which I had to be in the mood for and frequently was not. This was my fault, the author writes very well, and has clearly thought very deeply about his subject, but I was looking for more math and less philosophy.

I thought some of the proofs could have been more clear (for example, on page 215, why is f(a) a constant?), but in general I could follow along well enough not to lose the thread.

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.

Incontestablement, nous avons là un livre d'un nouveau type, qui démontre que l'on peut réconcilier deux littératures for distincts: "la scientifique", avec son ascèses, sa priorité au contenu, ses exigences de rigueur, que sais-je, tout ce qui d'habitude en dégoûte les lecteurs; et la "grande", celle où un auteur-créateur met en scène des personnages, raconte une histoire, fait penser, rêver, réagir, rire...

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.

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

Like the 4 other reviewers here have said: too wordy. There is poetry in calculus, but not this much. Still, there are little gems scattered around making it sort of worthwhile. But this is no "Journey Through Genius."