INFINITE POWERS HOW TO

to illuminate how calculus has helped bring into being our contemporary world and so many of the instruments whose role we now blithely assume.” -The Washington Post “Fortunately, we live in an era when a top mathematician can write a book about calculus that is accessible to the mathematically is the historical detail in the book that not only allows me to follow the math by taking me through how it was discovered, but also sticks in my mind. an array of witty and astonishing stories. By unveiling the principles of that language, Infinite Powers makes us marvel at the world anew.Ī New York Times Bestseller Featured on NPR's Science Friday Shortlisted for the 2019 Royal Society Science Book Prize Named one of 10 Best Books to Read this Spring by Amazon's Chris Schluep “Marvelous.

INFINITE POWERS HOW TO

Strogatz reveals how this form of math rose to the challenges of each age: how to determine the area of a circle with only sand and a stick how to explain why Mars goes “backwards” sometimes how to make electricity with magnets how to ensure your rocket doesn’t miss the moon how to turn the tide in the fight against AIDS.Īs Strogatz proves, calculus is truly the language of the universe. Infinite Powers recounts how calculus tantalized and thrilled its inventors, starting with its first glimmers in ancient Greece and bringing us right up to the discovery of gravitational waves (a phenomenon predicted by calculus). Though many of us were scared away from this essential, engrossing subject in high school and college, Steven Strogatz’s brilliantly creative, down-to-earth history shows that calculus is not about complexity it’s about simplicity. It harnesses an unreal number-infinity-to tackle real-world problems, breaking them down into easier ones and then reassembling the answers into solutions that feel miraculous. Without calculus, we wouldn’t have cell phones, TV, GPS, or ultrasound. We wouldn’t have unraveled DNA or discovered Neptune or figured out how to put 5,000 songs in your pocket.

From preeminent math personality and author of The Joy of x, a brilliant and endlessly appealing explanation of calculus-how it works and why it makes our lives immeasurably better.

Infinite powers