How do you humanize calculus and bring its equations and concepts to life? Larry Gonick’s clever and delightful answer is to have characters talking, commenting, and joking-all while rigorously teaching equations and concepts and indicating calculus’s utility. It’s a remarkable accomplishment-and a lot of fun.” — Lisa Randall, Professor of Physics, Harvard University, and author of Knocking on Heaven's Door
Gonick is to graphical expositions of advanced materials as Newton or Leibniz is to calculus. The difference is that Gonick has no rival. — Xiao-Li Meng, Whipple V. N. Jones Professor of Statistics and Department Chair, Harvard University
Larry Gonick’s sparkling and inventive drawings make a vivid picture out of every one of the hundreds of formulas that underlie Calculus. Even the jokers in the back row will ace the course with this book. — David Mumford, Professor emeritus of Applied Mathematics at Brown University and recipient of the National Medal of Science
I always thought that there are no magic tricks that use calculus. Larry Gonick proves me wrong. His book is correct, clear and interesting. It is filled with magical insights into this most beautiful subject. — Persi Diaconis, Professor of Mathematics, Stanford
It has no mean derivative results about the only derivatives that matter…. A spunky tool-toting heroine called Delta Wye seems the perfect role model for our next generation. — Susan Holmes, Professor of Statistics, Stanford
A creative take on an old, and for many, tough subject…Gonick’s cartoons and intelligent humor make it a fun read. — Amy Langville, Recipient of the Distinguished Researcher Award at College of Charleston and South Carolina Faculty of the Year
Gonick is to graphical expositions of advanced materials as Newton or Leibniz is to calculus. The difference is that Gonick has no rival.
It has no mean derivative results about the only derivatives that matter…. A spunky tool-toting heroine called Delta Wye seems the perfect role model for our next generation.
A creative take on an old, and for many, tough subject…Gonick’s cartoons and intelligent humor make it a fun read.
Larry Gonick’s sparkling and inventive drawings make a vivid picture out of every one of the hundreds of formulas that underlie Calculus. Even the jokers in the back row will ace the course with this book.
I always thought that there are no magic tricks that use calculus. Larry Gonick proves me wrong. His book is correct, clear and interesting. It is filled with magical insights into this most beautiful subject.
How do you humanize calculus and bring its equations and concepts to life? Larry Gonick’s clever and delightful answer is to have characters talking, commenting, and joking-all while rigorously teaching equations and concepts and indicating calculus’s utility. It’s a remarkable accomplishment-and a lot of fun.
A tour of calculus from the polymath whose illustrated guides have illuminated a wide range of subjects, from genetics and sex to the environment and the universe. This time out, unfortunately, Muse cartoonist Gonick's (The Cartoon History of the Modern World, Part 2, 2009, etc.) presentation is labored, the cartoons are primarily decorative and the course is tough. To begin with, calculus requires four years of high-school math, which the author reprises in the first 50 pages. For many readers this will be a slog through algebra, trigonometry, exponentials, function theory, etc. While most texts map equations onto lines or curves on a standard x-y axis, Gonick introduces parallel lines with arrows connecting an x value on one line to its f(x) value on the parallel line. This approach is particularly unhelpful when you want to visualize, say, minute changes of position (on the y axis) over time (on the x axis). Nor does the author discuss fundamental concepts like continuity or maxima and minima until well into the chapters on the derivative and differential calculus. While he does highlight fundamental theorems and classic rules, Gonick devotes too much space to how-to manipulations like how to differentiate inverse functions. The narrative improves when the author introduces the concept of the integral as the sum of skinny rectangles under a curve, and Gonick provides many helpful, practical examples of how calculus is used. This is no idiot's guide to math, but it could be useful as a supplement to a standard course in calculus.
