With verve, insight, and simplicity, he explains the deep ideas underlying one of humankind’s greatest intellectual achievements. “If calculus is the language of the universe, then Steven Strogatz is its Homer. How CALCULUS Reveals the Secrets of the Universe
By unveiling the principles of that language, Infinite Powers makes us marvel at the world anew.
Infinity and infinitesimals book how to#
Strogatz reveals how this form of math rose to the challenges of each age: how to determine the area of a circle with only sand and a stick how to explain why Mars goes “backwards” sometimes how to make electricity with magnets how to ensure your rocket doesn’t miss the moon how to turn the tide in the fight against AIDS.Īs Strogatz proves, calculus is truly the language of the universe. Infinite Powers recounts how calculus tantalized and thrilled its inventors, starting with its first glimmers in ancient GreecĮ and bringing us right up to the discovery of gravitational waves (a phenomenon predicted by calculus). It harnesses an unreal number-infinity-to tackle real‑world problems, breaking them down into easier ones and then reassembling the answers into solutions that feel miraculous. Though many of us were scared away from this essential, engrossing subject in high school and college, Steven Strogatz’s brilliantly creative, down‑to‑earth history shows that calculus is not about complexity it’s about simplicity. We wouldn’t have unraveled DNA or discovered Neptune or figured out how to put 5,000 songs in your pocket. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Without calculus, we wouldn’t have cell phones, TV, GPS, or ultrasound. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly.
Infinity and infinitesimals book series#
He argues that working with infinity is not just an abstract, intellectual exercise but that it is instead a concept with important practical everyday applications, and considers how mathematicians use infinity and infinitesimals to answer questions or supply techniques that do not appear to involve the infinite.ĪBOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. In this Very Short Introduction, Ian Stewart discusses infinity in mathematics while also drawing in the various other aspects of infinity and explaining some of the major problems and insights arising from this concept. But there are many others, for example Fourier analysis and fractals. The most obvious, and the first context in which major new techniques depended on formulating infinite processes, is calculus. Many vital areas of mathematics rest upon some version of infinity. Philosophers and mathematicians ranging from Zeno to Russell have posed numerous paradoxes about infinity and infinitesimals. Cosmologists consider sweeping questions about whether space and time are infinite. The infinitely large (infinite) is intimately related to the infinitely small (infinitesimal). Its history goes back to ancient times, with especially important contributions from Euclid, Aristotle, Eudoxus, and Archimedes. Infinity is an intriguing topic, with connections to religion, philosophy, metaphysics, logic, and physics as well as mathematics.
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