Finally I really understand what is calculus and how to solve problems using it. Best book about calculus i've ever read.

Before there was the beloved Martin Gardner, there was Sylvanus P Thompson. The Hitchhikers Guide... may have had DON'T PANIC in large friendly letters, but the whole title of this book is a friendly invitation to proceed into the wonderful world of the Calculus. It is what comes after a few introductory chapters by Gardner that really made me smile:

"What one fool can do, another can. --Ancient Simian proverb"

This is not a rigorous and elegant text on the theory and practice, it is a down and dirty introduction that gets at the heart of the differential and integral calculus in a way that intends to make the student want more. Success in the beginning instead of failure goes a long way toward further study. Gardner covers some of the issues that have been addressed in the teaching of higher math, and he makes no bones about the need to encourage rather than discourage those who can most benefit from having a practical knowledge of this powerful mathematical tool.

A warning to purchasers of this book as an e-pub. My nook Simple makes for very difficult reading of the equations without a magnifying glass. Changing the size of the type does not increase the size of any mathematical notation. For some reason, the nook is incapable of forming the Greek epsilon. The original book can be obtained free from gutenberg.org, and it works well in .pdf form. The downside to the free book is missing out on Martin Gardner's commentary and notes.

Not easy enough for me. An unhappy memory amidst many from the fall of 1964 at Yale. 8 AM even on Saturdays. This book is picked to represent that class which I totally flunked since I quit going early on. I'd done pretty well in math up to that point but Calculus seemed like Martian to me. The bad-sad old days... Date is approximate.

Was calculus actually made easy? No, however this book does make some things easy. Overall calculus will still be complicated Thompson style doesn't help this. He often makes things too simple skipping over steps, not bothering to explain things, he does this as he explains because "every school boy" should just know the answer. Thompson's book even the revised edition is not that revised there are numerous examples of things that were claimed to be changed but weren't. The simpler elements of calculus he does make simpler where the more complicated it gets the less easy he makes it. This book does not fit its title.

Hmm easy...

You definitely still need a textbook, but this is a great supplement. Thompson's writing style is engaging - he teaches the tricks of symbolic manipulation rather than calculus concepts themselves.

Probably the best introduction or primer on calculus available. In the intro, the editor suggests that high school math reform should bring texts like this into the classroom. I think he's right: a lot more students would walk away from high school understanding the basics of calc if this were taught. One reason it's so effective is that Thompson wasn't a mathematician; he was a physicist and knew how to communicate the math in a commonsense way that would help students who needed it for future applied work. Almost all contemporary calculus books (Thompson published his in 1908) are written by career mathematicians, i.e., people with PhDs in mathematics. We need those, of course, but it's strange there's no incentive for natural scientists or even economists, who use calculus frequently, to write an accessible textbook. Instead, we get those massive encyclopedia textbooks that are 1,000 pages and cost 100 bucks. This won't be your book if you're looking for a rigorous, college-level treatment of calculus (for that, read Tom Apostol's two volume calculus textbooks), but it fills an important niche in the educational marketplace that is unfortunately being ignored.

Verbose, although funny and interesting.

MathisFun, is easier resource.

1. Define it
2. Why do we want it
3. Do Calculations
4. Show pictures of it

One area, that I want to grow, how to explain something in most simple, short words?

Una introducció molt simple i elegant al càlcul diferencial. Parla de derivades, derivades parcials, integrals i equacions diferencials. Ho fa sense cap pretensió i intenta simplificar tots els temes a les seves idees principals. Hi ha errors de càlcul i a vegades es salten passes a l'hora de jugar amb les equacions. A part d'això, molt recomanable.

Amazing. Distills calculus down to its essence in a beautiful way. Makes me remember why I loved studying calculus. How making that jump from learning trigonometry and algebra to learning calculus is a profound experience.

I reread the text a few times and worked out most of the problems and feel I now understand calculus well enough to appreciate its significance and genius. I've worked my way through another calculus text because of it and am able to understand discussions about aspects of calculus in other math books as well.

Wish I had this book when I was a high school student. I definitely plan to use it with my children when they are older.

"You have now been personally conducted over the frontiers into the enchanted land.

...

You don't forbid the use of a watch to every person who does not know how to make one[.] You don't object to the musician playing on a violin that he has not himself constructed. You don't teach the rules of syntax to children until they have already become fluent in the use of speech. It would be equally absurd to require general rigid demonstrations to be expounded to beginners in the calculus.

...

There are amongst young engineers a number on whose ears the adage that what one fool can do, another can, may fall with a familiar sound. They are earnestly requested not to give the author away, nor to tell the mathematicians what a fool he really is."