Calculus Made Easy

You might think that a book on calculus is going to be a snooze fest. I actually ENJOYED reading this book. How is that possible you ask? Well apart from being very easy to read, it also gives you examples and works through the maths in a nice way. He isn't trying to impress you with the standard Maths books do but actually provides useful information that can be used for the harder stuff later on. It is laying the foundations if you like. I would imagine that this book would work better if you use it alongside another text book. So if you have problems with the Product Rule for example read this book, try the worked examples and then go onto another book and try some more examples. Only through repetition and practice will you nail calculus. Calculus is as hard as the situation in which it is utilised. Calculus can be used to find the maximum area of a rectangle of sides a and b which is rather simple. It can also be used to work out the inner workings of space-time and that IS difficult. You just need to understand that you need to learn to crawl before you can walk and run. This book will give you the confidence to take the next step. I highly recommend this book, plus it is relatively inexpensive but if you can find a second/third hand one then I'd do that.

Basically it has a very similar scope but with a few extra chapters. The difference between this book and "normal" modern textbooks is that normal textbooks don't explain how and why things work, to make the subject look more impressive like a magician who doesn't explain his tricks, thus make the writers seem cleverer. (same with teachers) This book however fully explains why the ideas make sense, to give you the best chance of understanding them. On the face of it, it sounds like you will need to learn more if you also learn the why-s, but otherwise you just need to memorise without understanding, which is far harder and takes longer. Beware, just because you're not explicitly "taught" something at A-level, it doesn't mean it won't come up in the exam. This is what happened to me with using the chain rule on 2 separate terms. Using this book before would have saved me quite a few marks. Don't worry about it being a century old. Calculus didn't change since then. The only difference is that he uses a few expressions that sound strange and some notations are slightly different. (use the notations they teach you at A level) Example insight: After completing A level I didn't fully understand the meaning of ∫ and dx therefore I needed to just memorise this: ∫dx=x, After reading this book I however know that ∫ means "sum of all the..." and dx is a very small fraction of x. Now it's obvious if you sum up all the fractions of x, you will get x. Why integration works in other cases also became obvious.

I'd been trying to find this for years, especially as I'm a bit of a physics geek. Yeah! Science b&*%h. Ok, so I'm also a fan of Breaking Bad. This really does help with calculus, although I'd hesitate to call to easy. If it's something you struggled with at school, or just heard about it from studies about Newton, give it a go. At this price (under £2) you can't go wrong, even if it's just in the book case, or propping up a table, it makes you look clever just having it in your home.

Great introduction or refresher for those who have not look at maths for a long time.

Why aren't all maths books as good is this. Never has a finer book been written on Calculus. I heartily recommend this book to all who want to know the beauty and simplicity of Calculus. It is esseential for the beginner and equally so for the expert. 'A' level students need this book. Ted Mooney

I struggle with books that advertise themselves as "made easy" when the subject matter at hand is not easy. I don't think single variable calculus is particularly advanced but it does require detailed presentation in order to be useful, I'm not sure why you would use this book when you could as easily skim through a more advanced text and just skip of the derivations. This book would be great for anyone with a decent background in pre-calculus that has some time on their hands and wants to work through the key ideas of single variable calculus but I would recommend a more advanced text for anyone looking to learn the subject properly.

"Calculus Made Easy" is a classic, and rightfully so. I used this book to review calculus quickly. Six year after high school, I had forgotten all about derivatives and integrals. What Thompson presents his readers are the bare necessities of single variable calculus. His motto: "What one fool can do, another can." He teaches the stuff using the concept of differentials, which is far more intuitive (but perhaps less rigorous) than using limits . I read this book after having read "Mathematics for the Nonmathematician" by Morris Kline, another excellent math book (focused on the history of mathematical ideas, although with many exercises). Everyone who's mathematically unsophisticated but curious should read Kline's book for culture.