The Calculus Diaries - Jennifer Ouellette [0]
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 - To Infinity and Beyond
Chapter 2 - Drive Me Crazy
Chapter 3 - Casino Royale
Chapter 4 - The Devil’s Playground
Chapter 5 - Show Me the Money
Chapter 6 - A Pox upon It
Chapter 7 - Body Heat
Chapter 8 - The Catenary Tales
Chapter 9 - Surfin’ Safari
EPILOGUE
APPENDIX 1 - Doing the Math
APPENDIX 2 - Calculus of the Living Dead
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
THE CALCULUS DIARIES
Jennifer Ouellette is the author of The Physics of the Buffyverse (2007) and Black Bodies and Quantum Cats: Tales from the Annals of Physics (2006). Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Discover, Salon, Nature, New Scientist, Physics Today, Symmetry, and Physics World, among other venues. She maintains a general science-and-culture group blog called Cocktail Party Physics, and blogs for Discovery News. In November 2008, Ouellette became director of the Science and Entertainment Exchange, a program of the National Academy of Sciences aimed at fostering creative collaborations between scientists and entertainment industry professionals. In spring 2008, she was Journalist in Residence at the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara. Ouellette holds a black belt in jujitsu, and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Caltech physicist Sean M. Carroll.
On the Web:
www.jenniferouellette-writes.com
www.cocktailpartyphysics.com
Praise for The Calculus Diaries
“In this wonderful and compulsively readable book, Jennifer Ouellette finds the signature of mathematics—and especially calculus, of course—in the most unexpected places, the gorgeously lunatic architecture of Spain’s Antoni Gaudi, the shimmering arc of waves on a beach. Just following her on the journey is half the fun. But the other half is learning about the natural beauty and elegance of calculations. Ouellette’s ever clear and always stimulating voice is a perfect match to the subject—and The Calculus Diaries is a tour de force.”
—Deborah Blum, author of The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
“A charming, gentle introduction to important mathematical concepts and their relevance to everyday life.”
—Leonard Mlodinow, author of The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
“Jennifer Ouellette’s calculus confessional is a delight, and an example of the finest kind of science writing. Her book reveals to its readers the gritty inner workings of the most important idea humans have ever thought. (Yes, calculus is that big: it’s all about understanding how things change in space and time, and there just isn’t much that’s more important than that.) Ouellette’s wit, her elegant wielding of metaphor, and her passion for both math and funky culture produce this crucial insight: every equation tells a story, she says, and she’s right, and the tales she tells here will captivate even the most math-phobic.”
—Tom Levenson, author of Newton and the Counterfeiter
“Back in the day, when I was close to flunking out of calculus class because I couldn’t understand why it was worth my valuable time to actually understand it, I needed someone like Jennifer Ouellette to gently explain how I wrong I was. She’s like every English major’s dream math teacher: funny, smart, infected with communicable enthusiasm, and she can rock a ‘Buffy’ reference. In this book, she hastens the day when more people are familiar with an integral function than with Justin Bieber.”
—Peter Sagal, host of NPR’s Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! and author of The Book of Vice
“As amusing as it is enlightening, The Calculus Diaries is no dry survey of abstractions. It’s a guide to everyday life—to car trips and roller-coaster rides, diet and exercise, mortgages and the housing bubble, even social networking. As Ouellette modestly recounts her own learning curve, she and her husband become characters alongside eccentrics such as Newton and Gaudi and William the Conqueror. Like a great dance teacher, Ouellette steers us so gently we think