Inside Interesting Integrals: A Collection of Sneaky Tricks, Sly Substitutions, and Numerous Other Stupendously Clever, Awesomely Wicked, and Devilishly Seductive Maneuvers for Computing Hundreds of Perplexing Definite Integrals From Physics, / Edition 2

by Paul J. Nahin

Overview

What’s the point of calculating definite integrals since you can’t possibly do them all?

What makes doing the specific integrals in this book of value aren’t the specific answers we’ll obtain, but rather the methods we’ll use in obtaining those answers; methods you can use for evaluating the integrals you will encounter in the future.

This book, now in its second edition, is written in a light-hearted manner for students who have completed the first year of college or high school AP calculus and have just a bit of exposure to the concept of a differential equation. Every result is fully derived. If you are fascinated by definite integrals, then this is a book for you. New material in the second edition includes 25 new challenge problems and solutions, 25 new worked examples, simplified derivations, and additional historical discussion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030437879
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	06/28/2020
Series:	Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics
Edition description:	2nd ed. 2020
Pages:	503
Sales rank:	582,070
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Paul J. Nahin is professor emeritus of electrical engineering at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of 21 books on mathematics, physics, and the history of science, published by Springer, and the university presses of Princeton and Johns Hopkins. He received the 2017 Chandler Davis Prize for Excellence in Expository Writing in Mathematics (for his paper “The Mysterious Mr. Graham,” The Mathematical Intelligencer, Spring 2016). He gave the invited 2011 Sampson Lectures in Mathematics at Bates College, Lewiston, Maine.

Table of Contents

From the Contents: Preface.- Introduction.- ‘Easy’ Integrals.- Feynman’s Favorite Trick.- Gamma and Beta Function Integrals.- Using Power Series to Evaluate Integrals.- Seven Not-So-Easy Integrals.- Using √(-1) to Evaluate Integrals.- Contour Integration.- Epilogue.- Solutions to the Challenge Problems.