Calculus Made Easy, Silvanus P. Thompson & Martin Gardner
Calculus Made Easy: Being a Very-Simplest Introduction to Those Beautiful Methods of Reckoning Which Are Generally Called by the Terrifying Names of the Differential Calculus and the Integral Calculus by Silvanus P. Thompson & Martin Gardner, New York: St Martin's Press, 1998. 330 pages, ISBN: 0333772431
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"Being myself a remarkably stupid fellow, I have had to unteach myself the difficulties, and I now beg to present to my fellow fools the parts that are not hard. What one fool can do, another can." -- Silvanus P. Thompson, FRS (Fellow of the Royal Society).
"Calculus was the major intellectual discovery of the seventeenth century that made possible the scientific revolution and all of modern science, technology, and medicine." - Keith Devlin
Calculus is one of the highest, most beautiful, intellectual edifices created by human kind. It also provides the mathematical scaffolding behind our entire technological society. Let Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thomson lead you through the essentials of the subject, just as it led Richard Feynman into the world of mathematical physics.
Martin Gardner has added three chapters, explaining the concepts of function, limit, and derivative; and an appendix of recreational problems. He has also updated the notation, in the few places where this was needed to help the modern reader. He also provides a great introduction, and useful notes throughout.
Thompson's book is intuitive, and may not get much respect from the purest mathematicians (Thompson was a physicist and electrical engineer). But no one has written about calculus with greater simplicity and clarity. Calculus Made Easy emphasizes the basic ideas of calculus, not only teaching readers how to differentiate and integrate simple functions, but explaining the "philosophy" of the subject.
It is an ideal book for any student who needs an understandable introduction to calculus, whether he or she wants to apply it to biology, economics, physics, or any other subject.
It is useful for general readers who feel they need more help with basic calculus when tackling advanced books, like The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose.
Calculus made Easy has a remarkable history of inspiring major figures in the mathematical sciences. It's the book that taught Richard Feynman Calculus. The Fields Medal winner Curtis T. McMullen was inspired to become a mathematician by this book. Morris Kline recommended this book as the one high school students should read. The economist Julian Simon recommended this book to students because it "teaches a system of approximation that makes quite clear the central idea of calculus, [which is otherwise] extraordinarily difficult to comprehend using the mathematicians' elegant method of limits."
Most mathematics deals with static objects, like numbers or circles. But the universe is in a constant state of flux. Calculus is needed to understand the movement of objects in a universe that is constantly changing, and this book introduces you to the essentials of that calculus.
Silvanus Phillips Thompson FRS
Silvanus Phillips Thompson (1881-1916) was an electrical engineer and professor of physics at the City & Guilds Technical College, Finsbury for most of his working life.
As well as being a great populariser of science, he did much to help the cause of women scientists. For instance, the first woman to give a paper to the IEE (Hertha Ayrton) thanked him in writing for his support. He had four daughters, and supported them in their intellectual endevours in a way that was quite unusual for Victorian times.
Thompson wrote many technical books, but is today remembered most for Calculus Made Easy. In his lifetime, he was most famous for a compelling biography of Michael Faraday. In fact, he wrote several biographies, including Lord Kelvin's.
Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson was first published in 1910 under a pseudonym. The author feared mathematicians would not appreciate an engineer wandering onto their turf. In fact, the author was not revealed until after his death. But the book was immediately appreciated by students for downplaying tedious calculations and stressing fundamental ideas. With the updating provided by Martin Gardner, it remains a great introduction to this difficult subject for today's students.