Calculus Made Easy

M. L. Sewell, Jr., 3/2000


recommended reading for beginners and Calculus teachers.   April 13, 2001
101 out of 102 found this review helpful

I have been teaching Calculus for the last two years, and I just stumbled across this book a few weeks ago. What I found was a book that explains the philosophy of the subject in a very simple manner, making it easy to understand even for people who are not proficient in math.

The concepts in Calculus are really simple things; as Gardner puts it, "the universe seems to favor simplicity in its fundamental laws". But there's always the teacher's pride, which leads him to make it all seem difficult, expecting the student to be amazed at how much the teacher knows. Alas the true result is that the student is usually left confused, loses interest in the subject, perhaps gives up on a career that he/she otherwise would have succeeded in, etc. I know about this, because I am guilty of it myself.

I recommend this book to people who:

1. Are just learning calculus. The book uses easy-to-understand language, simple examples, etc. Read about the binomial theorem before reading this book, though.

2. People who want to grasp the essence of calculus, not necessarily for a college course. Easy, entertaining reading; as stated earlier, the philosophy of the subject is presented in a comprehensible manner.

3. Calculus teachers. Definitely a must! This book is a good example of how calculus should be taught. Though you may not draw totally upon it, having read through Thompson's book can give you a good idea on how to organize your course and how to explain fundamental concepts


A TRUE CLASSICAL GEM IN MATHEMATICS   March 4, 2002
JON STRICKLAND (Smithfield, NC United States)
24 out of 24 found this review helpful

Calculus Made Easy is truly a well-written book. It divides into over 20 chapters thorough examples and applications of calculus as well as the development of calculus itself, and everything is surprisingly contained in fewer than 300 pages! Authors of many modern-day calculus textbooks twice its size try to explain the same fundamental concepts but cannot achieve Thompson's levels of triumph.

Topics in this work include: limits, maxima, minima, successive differentiation, compound interest, law of organic growth, and more. Though the subjects are frequently isolated for each chapter, Thompson has nonetheless provided insights to the degree that one could synthesize or put together these various concepts to formulate their own interesting problems and procedures.

With the great Martin Gardner to revise this classic and to provide further mathematical expositions, Calculus Made Easy is highly recommended for the lover of mathematics as well as the teacher who wants to present mathematics from a better thematic standpoint.


You won't really understand Calculus without this book!   July 24, 2004
Dennis J McCain (Copperas Cove, Texas United States)
27 out of 28 found this review helpful

Most calculus courses are taught to college freshman by graduate students who really didn't understand the course when they were freshman being taught by graduate students who didn't understand it when they were taught, etc, etc. Once you realize that most college instructors aren't proficient in the course to teach it, then you start to realize that if you're ever going to truly understand calculus, then you better find an alternative source of knowledge. And this book is exactly that source.

Read this book before you enter one of those imposing lecture halls (or at least the appropriate chapter of this book). Then and only then will you begin to at least recognize what the instructor is saying. And hopefully you will recognize when they're saying something that is not quite right.

Calculus is not hard; it's just not easy. This book probably should have been titled Calculus Made Understandable, or Caculus Made Fun, but it wasn't. So read the book and do the problems. It will open up a whole world of enjoyment that will last a lifetime.

Remember this very important point. Math was never learned in a lecture hall --- it's only truly learned in a study hall or library doing problems over and over and over.


Simple is better   November 15, 2001
Yu-jin Chia (Cupertino, CA USA)
10 out of 13 found this review helpful

This is a highly recommendable supplement for anyone taking first-year calculus. It will take you all the way up to integration, and explains the concepts in both clear and simple terms. You will not even need much of a foundation in geometry or pre-calculus to understand the material in this book. Although I know there are some good calculus teachers out there, I can say for sure that Silvanus P. Thompson did a better job explaining the key concepts than my calculus professor. It's not that I had a bad one- it's that Thompson is obviously just better. While I would recommend this mostly to those about to or taking calculus I, it also makes a good review for those who slept through most of it. All in all, an excellent piece on a most difficult topic.