Calculus made easy--yeah sort of--if you're willing to put in some hard work.

I think you could segment the books potential audience into a few groups. Those who want to simply pass their mandatory calculus class and are looking for a book thats not the size of a tire. Those who are genuinely enthralled with all things calculus and like a speck of dust around a vacuum will inhale anything remotely topical to calculus and finally those who're just intellectually curious about what calculus is and who're also interested in a book that is not the size of a tire. Theres probably many more but today my imagination is limited so this will have to do.

For all groups, I think the book delivers on what it promises to do, it does give the intuition behind calculus and peel back the fear surrounding it. I am not sure if I am a high maintenance mathematical reader, I think I might be. I need to see how every step is processed in the examples just so I am not like "Hey man, how the fuck did you get {insert equation here}. I hate that feeling when math books don't do that and this book does that but I also consider that I very well might be the mathematical reader version of one of those beverly hills wife reality tv show "stars" who complains about their cappuccino not being "hot enough". This book is short and simplified for the reader, it goes through the major components of calculus in under 300 pages while other books are just warming up around 500 pages.

Heres what I would recommend, if you want to just pass your class. Go to youtube and just watch the organic chemistry tutors calculus channel, you'll learn a lot from watching and practicing the problems. If you have your soul into calculus than I would say yeah, pick this up as a side read for fun. I am sure you'll whizz right past it.

Its important to keep in context that this book is very old and was way ahead of its time and yet it still holds its own with todays books. A fun read. 4 stars.

'What one fool can do, another can'. Some fools are getting a bit on the rusty side though ;)

Of all the math books I've read, this one is by far the most exciting. Mr. Thompson was both irreverent and witty in his development of the subject.

Prior to this book, I had attempted to wade through a couple of college entry-level calculus textbooks, but found the style of both authors to be obtuse and obfuscating. They may have known their subject, but this math whiz (straight "A's" in high school through Advanced Algebra & Trig) found those other authors' abilities to communicate far less than optimum. I would read in one until I couldn't go any farther, then I would read in the other up to the same subject point. Then I would realize what both of them were trying to say. The simplicity that they had mangled has all been straightened out under the compassionate and clear pen of Sylvanus P. Thompson.

When I first found this book in the mid-80's, I thought at first that it was one of those "made easy" trend books I had been seeing so much of. But no, this little gem had seen by then three dozen reprintings starting in 1910. Talk about "classic!"

The book is not perfect. There are so many things I wish had been done to illuminate the subject more thoroughly, but perhaps one day I'll have to write it myself.

The idea of calculus is so simple, and Mr. Thompson's little book is the best that I've seen, yet.

Probably the most helpful book I've ever read in my short life on this earth;

Definitely eased my worries for high school.

3.75 stars

Enlightening. There is so much more to calculus than previously learnt.

The strength of this particular book is in assisting the reader with grasping the foundations and fundamentals of calculus; the building blocks from which the reader himself can construct solutions to complex problems.

I have been doing some reading that requires brushing up on my integration. Integration is one of those skills that goes to rust quickly if you don't use it. Could not find my old Thomas's Calculus book and current calculus textbooks turned out to cost in the order of $300 (ouch).

Got a copy of Calculus Made Easy. It turned out to not be at all what I'm looking for yet I am rating it 5 stars!

If you want to learn calculus read this book first.

If you ever wondered what calculus was about find a copy of this book and read the first 4 - 5 chapters, they're short.

Calculus Made Easy demystifies the concepts and clearly explains the symbols and language of differentiation and integration. The author acknowledges that the language of calculus is obtuse and pokes some fun at the mathematicians that came up with.

Martin Gardner has updated and revised the latest edition. The sections by Mr Gardner are good but not as lucid as those of the original. This is ONLY because the original is so good.

If you have any interest in math or are going to be forced into taking Calculus Calculus Made Easy will make the topic enjoyable or at least understandable.

This book saved my neck in HS maths; thanks Dad, for giving this gem. Single handedly made me learn and retain concepts that I remember still and use for fun!

Useless because symbols are not shown!

This text absolutely requires the use of certain special symbols and Greek letters and mathematical-style typesetting. This Kindle edition doesn’t do this and is literally unreadable, at least on my iPad and on my Kindle Paperwhite. Amazon should withdraw it from publication.

Available for free on project Gutenberg as a beautifully typeset PDF, this amazing little book presents the most fundamental ideas of the calculus in a surprisingly approachable way. It's certainly light on rigor, but for an introductory primer,that's not such a terrible thing.

I think this would probably continue to be a popular mathematics textbook if it were in print today. It would need a few updates—I think the typography and figures could be better, and the pre-decimalization currency examples would probably just confuse modern readers—but on the whole, a solid explanation into the how of calculus, without getting wrapped up in the rigor that makes many subjects come across as impractical to the novice student.

That said, it skips over a lot of specific applications that show up in modern calculus classes. You could argue, though, that it's not getting bogged down in these applications, which allows it to introduce differential equations in the same book. It's not a differential equations textbook, to be clear, merely an introduction to the most general forms. If I were writing a math book, though, I would probably take a similar structural approach.