Calculus Made Easy
by Silvanus Phillips Thompson · first published 1914
60% recommend38% neutral2% critical
Why HN recommends it
Informal, intuitive introduction to calculus built on infinitesimals; it explains why the methods work without heavy rigor. Suits self-learners, beginners, and anyone who wants a gentle, brief route to the concepts.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
The classic book on infinitesimal calculus by Thompson, originally published in 1910; then updated with additional material in 1998 by Martin Gardner.
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If one wants to learn calculus, I can't recommend Silvanus P. Thompson's Calculus Made Easy enough. It's one of those old (1920's, IIRC) books that gets right down to brass tax, and doesn't clutter your understanding with useless fluff designed to make learning maths "fun". These kinds of…
on “Introduction to Calculus with Derivatives” ↗…calculus is usually taught is a mess. A mix of epsilon-delta formalism, without adequate motivation, differentials and excessive focus on computations. For young students, a great introductory textbook is Calculus Made Easy. It is around 100 years old, and develops all the material using infinitesimals. Which is essentially modern non-standard analysis, minus rigor. It is also the way Newton and Leibniz thought about calculus,…
on “The Calculus Trap (2005)” ↗…school, I mentioned I'd be taking Calculus next year to a co-worker a couple years older than I. He said he had the best book in the world on Calculus, and he loaned me his copy of Silvanus P Thompson's Calculus made easy. I thoroughly enjoyed that book, benefited from its intuitive explanations, and forever appreciated his recommendation. If I may similarly influence anyone here, for themselves or someone they know,…
on “Calculus Made Easy (1914) [pdf]” ↗I came across-Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus Thompson,on someones twitter feed. Published in 1910 and far less scary and far more interesting to read than a lot of math text books. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/33283/33283-pdf.pdf
on “Introduction to Applied Linear Algebra: Vectors, Matrices, and Least Squares” ↗After Vector Calc, I wanted to go back to the fundamentals, to understand instead of remembering. I came across Silvanus Thompson's 1910 reprinted textbook Calculus Made Easy [1], and it was hands down the best primer on any topic I've delved into. 1. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Calculus-Made-Easy-Very-Simplest-Int...
on “In Math You Have to Remember, In Other Subjects You Can Think About It” ↗Did you ever read Calculus Made Easy? If you just want to understand enough calculus to know why a thrown ball follows a parabola, that really isn't hard. The typical university course aims higher than that - it's trying to instill a way…
on “Curse Of The Gifted (2000)” ↗…level you can try to understand what the main concepts are about, be able to compute derivatives and integrals, solve optimization and related rates problems, and so on. I'd recommend Silvanus Thompson's Calculus Made Easy over any mainstream calculus book for this. In my opinion, the book succeeds amazingly at fulfilling the promise of its title. But suppose you really try to read any mainstream calculus book, and understand…
on “Introduction to Applied Linear Algebra: Vectors, Matrices, and Least Squares” ↗…gives me this slightly creepy face every now and then. I mean, it seems solid, but it's just really hard to read. Really, my favorite gentle calculus textbook has been one I recently was Thompson's "Calculus Made Easy." The way it's written is informal by the standards of when it was written, but to a modern eye reads like your whimsical grandpa decided to bust out a pipe, an expensive brandy, and serious calc knowledge.
on “Illustrated Calculus Textbook” ↗"Calculus Made Easy" by Silvanus Thompson (updated by Martin Gardner). http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Made-Easy-Silvanus-Thompson/d... (And you probably know this, but "Calculus" isn't the same as the "Lambda Calculus"…
on “Offer HN: Free Maths Lessons” ↗Check out my No bullshit guide to math and physics: http://minireference.com/ [$33], it covers all of high school math, mechanics, derivatives, and integrals. An excellent free alternative is Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson, which is very good and also funny http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33283
on “Why there is no Hitchhiker’s Guide to Mathematics for Programmers” ↗…doing mathematics. Without further details, it's hard to know what your current level is. Most math bootcamps cover algebra and calculus. A great high school level one is: * Basic Mathematics by Lang * Calculus Made Easy by Thompson If that is too simplistic, try a Math 55 like approach: * Linear Algebra Done Right by Axler * Principles of Mathematical Analysis by Rudin You can replace Axler by Finite-Dimensional…
on “Any recommended crash course on Maths?” ↗Related question, anyone know any good resources for learning and developing intuition in Abstract Algebra? Especially ones that explain it well, like Calculus Made Easy did for Calculus. AA is a prereq for cryptography, category theory and and other areas of interest for CompSci. I asked this a few weeks ago but at an off peak time and not many folks saw the question.…
on “Ask HN: Best resources to gain math intuition?” ↗Calculus by far. I read this "Calculus Made Easy" by Silvanus P. Thompson and it's still to this day my inspiration for explaining complex technical topics to lay people. It's a fantastic book, and even if you know math you must read it if you want…
on “Learn Python The Hard Way: a new book by Zed Shaw” ↗If you've never read it before this book is a very intuitive introduction (and refresher): http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Made-Easy-Silvanus-Thompson/d...
on “Calculus Revisited - a complete self-study calculus course from MIT OCW” ↗Maybe it was "Calculus Made Easy", by Silvanus P. Thompson? That's an old book that explains the basic idea of integration and differentiation, but doesn't try to be rigorous at all. http://www.scribd.com/doc/8533492/Calculus-Made-Easy-by-Silv...
on “Vi Hart: Every school should replace calculus with recreational math” ↗