Calculus for the practical man
by James Edgar Thompson · first published 1931
36% recommend64% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Practical, example-driven calculus text focused on how to actually compute with derivatives and integrals. It serves as a hands-on companion for learners and working professionals who need to apply the methods.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…and only because it was written by a surgeon rather than a mathematician: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/383087.Mathematics Warning: Took me a couple of years to get through. Oh and 1946 copy of Calculus for the Practical Man by J E Thompson.
on “Cakes, Custard and Category Theory: Easy Recipes for Understanding Complex Maths” ↗I have seen this discussed online several times. Here is a HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14192894 that indicates the text Feynman first used was Calculus for the Practical Man by J. E. Thompson. Both are quality texts and as the linked HN thread notes, can be found on archive.org.
on “Introduction to Calculus with Derivatives” ↗I'd also recommend Calculus for the Practical Man. It's what Feynman used and is quite good for learning how to calculate various things with calculus. Incidentally, my college calculus class also used Stewart.
on “6.S094: Deep Learning for Self-Driving Cars” ↗actually I believe that was "Calculus for the Practical Man" by J.E. Thompson and it is also an excellent read.
on “Calculus Made Easy (1914) [pdf]” ↗…Abraham, Christopher Shaw) - Geometry, Relativity and the Fourth Dimension (Rudolf Rucker) - 3Blue1Brown Essence of Calculus: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDMsr9K-rj53DwVRMYO3t5Yr - Calculus for the Practical Man (J.E. Thompson) - Div, Grad, Curl, and All That: An Informal Text on Vector Calculus (Harry M. Schey) - Who Is Fourier? a Mathematical Adventure - Physics, Topology, Logic and Computation: A Rosetta…
on “Ask HN: Serious mathematics books that can replace a good teacher?” ↗…homeschoolers called Saxon Math. If you haven't had a course in calculus before, maybe you should skim a more intuitive book before or alongside reading Spivak. I don't know of any firsthand, but I heard Calculus for the Practical Man is good. Scans are freely available online (actually, of all these books) and Feynman famously learned calculus from it when he was 12.
on “Ask HN: How or where to begin learning mathematics from first principles?” ↗"Calculus for the Practical Man" first and "Advanced Calculus", by F.S. Woods (1926) then.
on “The most enlightening Calculus books” ↗…keep it interesting however. Quick page shot to show the scope and density: http://i.imgur.com/sV1WYFd.jpg I have a number of other books as well that I use as a reference as well so no problems there (calculus for the practical man has some different insights). Oh and betterexplained.com.
on “Physical Intuition, Not Mathematics (2011)” ↗I dont know if the book you had was correct, but in one of his interviews, Feynmen had mentioned he used a book called 'calculus for the practical man' (https://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Practical-Man-J-Thompson/dp/...) i think.
on “Feynman Algorithm (2014)” ↗…Theory: Easy Recipes for Understanding Complex Maths' which seemed interesting so that was ordered as well. Shipping time to US is listed as 5 days. Plus if you need a .pdf of Feynman's favorite math book (Calculus for the Practical Man - Thompson (1946)) currently there are copies at KAT and PB.
on “Cakes, Custard and Category Theory: Easy Recipes for Understanding Complex Maths” ↗no that was Calculus for the practical man http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7398477-calculus-for-the-...
on “Calculus Made Easy (1914) [pdf]” ↗…Practical Man, and I learned trigonometry for the practical man from that. I soon forgot it again because I didn't understand it very well but the series was coming out, and the library was going to get Calculus for the Practical Man and I knew by this time by reading the Encyclopedia that calculus was an important subject...and then the calculus book finally came out ...and I went to the library to take it out and she looks at me…
on “Feynman Algorithm (2014)” ↗> So that would point to Feynman's calculus book being "Calculus for the Practical Man" by J.E.Thompson rather than Silvanus P Thompson's "Calculus Made Easy", whose second edition came out in 1914. I would not be surprised that Feynman read and used both. It's just that the quote on fools…
on “Feynman Algorithm (2014)” ↗(Above is a link to Thompson’s Calculus for the practical man, which Feynman mentions by name, although it’d probably be better to let the Internet Archive redirect the download wherever they want it to be from[1].) [1] https://archive.org/download/in.ernet.dli.2015.462654/2015.4...
on “A look inside Feynman’s calculus notebook” ↗I always conflate this with the book Feynman studied, Calculus for the Practical Man https://archive.org/details/calulusforthepra000526mbp
on “Calculus Made Easy” ↗