What is calculus about?

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• mechanical_fish · Sep 9, 2008 · Recommends

  A snapshot of my bookshelf's "math" section, which really hasn't changed much since I was in high school and hadn't taken calculus: W.W. Sawyer, What is Calculus About? and Mathematician's Delight Courant and Robbins, What is Mathematics? Hogben, Mathematics for the Million Steinhaus, Mathematical Snapshots Ivars Peterson, The Mathematical Tourist Davis and Hersh,…

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• JimJinkins · Jun 19, 2009 · Recommends

  W. W. Sawyer Mathematician's Delight Prelude to Mathematics What is Calculus About? This is best intro to calculus I ever saw. When I taught introductory calculus, I recommended it to all my students.

  on “Ask HN: good math books” ↗
• mechanical_fish · Jun 22, 2008 · Recommends

  …took the exams and did much of the homework...) but my teachers (who were quite awesome) recognized that I was ahead of the class and enjoyed teaching myself, so they threw me books like PSSC Physics and What is Calculus About? and told me to have fun. That was, however, unofficial and sort of under the radar. I expect such a style of learning to continue to rise in popularity now that the Web is here. It's just easier than…

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• Alex3917 · Jun 20, 2007 · Mentions

  Good post. The only other Socratic book I own is "What is Calculus about" by W.W. Sawyer. It's more loosely Socratic though. There are paragraphs of text interspersed with questions that either ask you to look for a pattern, or else follow a statement to its logical conclusion.…

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