The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, and Survive a Zombie Apocalypse

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The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, and Survive a Zombie Apocalypse (eBook) Pub. Date: 8/31/2010 Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
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The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, and Survive a Zombie Apocalypse Pub. Date: 8/31/2010 Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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Overview

Kiss My Math meets A Tour of the Calculus

Jennifer Ouellette never took math in college, mostly because she-like most people-assumed that she wouldn't need it in real life. But then the English-major-turned-award-winning-science-writer had a change of heart and decided to revisit the equations and formulas that had haunted her for years. The Calculus Diaries is the fun and fascinating account of her year spent confronting her math phobia head on. With wit and verve, Ouellette shows how she learned to apply calculus to everything from gas mileage to dieting, from the rides at Disneyland to shooting craps in Vegas-proving that even the mathematically challenged can learn the fundamentals of the universal language.

What People Are Saying

Carl Zimmer

"Zombies? Surfing? Gambling? Nobody told me calculus could be like this. To my twelfth-grade math teacher: I demand a do-over!" --(Carl Zimmer, author of Parasite Rex and The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution)

Danica McKellar

"The Calculus Diaries is a great primer for anyone who needs to get over their heebie-jeebies about an upcoming calculus class, or for anyone who's ever wondered how calculus fits into everyday life and wants to be entertained, too!"--(Danica McKellar, New York Times bestselling author of Math Doesn't Suck and Hot X: Algebra Exposed)

Deborah Blum

"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 Antonio Gaudi, the shimmering arc of waves on a beach. Just following her on the journey is the 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)

Michael Sims

"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 we're gliding along on our own." -- (Michael Sims, author of Adam's Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Form)

Peter Sagal

"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, NPR's "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me," and author of The Book of Vice)

Editorial Reviews

Nature

“In The Calculus Diaries, science writer Jennifer Ouellette makes maths palatable using a mix of humour, anecdote and enticing facts. . .Using everyday examples, such as petrol mileage and fairground rides, Ouellette makes even complex ideas such as calculus and probability appealing.”

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780143117377
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Publication date: 8/31/2010
Pages: 336
Sales rank: 233,481
Product dimensions: 5.30 (w) x 7.90 (h) x 0.80 (d)

Meet the Author

Jennifer Ouellette is a card-carrying member of the National Association of Science Writers. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Discover, Salon, and Nature. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Cal Tech cosmologist Sean Carroll.

Acknowledgments xiii

Prologue: I Could Be Mathier 1

1 To Infinity and Beyond 11

2 Drive Me Crazy 40

3 Casino Royale 65

4 The Devil's Playground 93

5 Show Me the Money 119

6 A Pox upon It 140

7 Body Heat 171

8 The Catenary Tales 202

9 Surfin' Safari 225

Epilogue: The Mimetics of Math 249

Appendix 1 Doing the Math 263

Appendix 2 Calculus of the Living Dead 293

Bibliography 299

Index 309

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 3.5

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-Lola

Posted April 12, 2012

I thought this book would be full of math equations, yet it was

I thought this book would be full of math equations, yet it was stories of how math is used in the real world. great book, highly recommended.
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