Customer Reviews

Calculus for Cats

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Calculus isn't my subject. I found its study frustrating, and the authors of Calculus for cats obviously sympathize with my plight. I had read their Algebra Unplugged which helped to refresh my memory even about the more than basic principles of that study. Approaching calculus, I had a lot less confidence. The nice thing about this book is that you don't need confidence in your math abilities to enjoy it. The authors postulate that calculus was invented by cats who have a vested interest in keeping the real meaning of the discipline, not to mention its practice, out of human hands. Math books are written to obscure understanding not enhance it, and the cats love it. Cats the authors explain are constantly scurrying after mice, and they use the calculations of calculus to catch them. Each function, or as your math book would say, each f(x) (or y), is really a mouse that the cat is scurrying to catch. You can too. There are many amusing images, notably a cat at the center of a circle holding a long rope with another cat holding the other end skating around it. The authors also get down to much nitty gritty about notation and explain why different subjects like physics or economics or even different branches of pure mathematics use different notations to mean the same thing. It's all stuff that's very useful for a student to know ahead of time. (It helps to know that you will study second derivatives after you study first derivatives for example. That is it helps to have a comprehensible outline before you start the class.) It doesn't substitute for the calculus class itself, but I got a much better sense of what calculus' aims really are and how it works. Now if only I could figure out how to tackle those nasty little exponents.

This book was amazing. It took something that we, from the outside of the math world, find enormously complex and confusing and through imagery and the imagination of the authors, made it understandable and accessible. I recommend it highly, especially to anyone who is about to take calculus for the first time. If you read this, you will be able to conceptualize what you are learning about....essential to truly understanding mathematics.

I have done physics, statics, strength of materials, and basic circuit analysis all at the algebra level because I never knew what calculus was. This book explains what calculus is without doing the math. After reading this book I read "Who is Fourier" by College of Lex and "Calculus The Easy Way" by Douglas Downing. And finally learn what Calculus is.

The authors make an analogy between what they are trying to accomplish in this book, with an English teacher who first lets his students hear a poem read, before analyzing it technically. This analogy holds up to a point, but not completely. In some ways, the conceptual, no pain approach to calculus presented here is more like an English teacher reading an English languge poem to a bunch of students who can't understand English.

The language of math is still, and always will be numbers. I was left wondering about too may concepts because the real work, the math, was left out in many instances. After reading this book, I went through a more mathematically oriented book oncalculus, suffered with the number crunching, and came to a better understanding of the calculus. No pain, no gain is true in this case.

I also didn't like the way the book was organized with all the chapters running together. More section breaks would have helped.

On the up side, the authors had a difficult job, and did an admirable job. I did indeed come away learning something. Part of the problem I had with this book was probably that I wasn't using it as a supplement to a normal calculus textbook in a normal calc course, but rather was using it for self-study on its own. If you are currently enrolled in a calc course or have previously taken the subject, you might feel better about this book.

In my continuing quest to always be the source of all information for my son, Calculus For Cats has saved me! As his math skills continued, I was starting to pay for sleeping through Calculus in High School. But Ken Amdahl saved me. This is a perfect book for anyone wanting to learn the concepts of Calculus ... even if you hate math and cats!

I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. The underlying concepts of calculus are explained very clearly. Forget about the cat stuff.. it is irrelevant, not distracting.. but strange. The rest of the book is great though. Understand.. this is not a math book and will not do the work for you. What it does is explain in non mathematical terms,what your math teacher is trying to explain using the opaque language required of mathematicians. read this before math class, then review applicable parts during math class and you will surely benefit.

According to the authors, cats want to keep people confused about calculus, and I think that cats helped to write this book. Actually, I have been reading a lot of math and science concept books, trying to find any that really clarify the ideas, processes, and applications; technique is best learned with a good textbook. I did not find the analogies in Calculus for Cats to be particularly engaging or enlightening, but this short book does act as a primer of sorts. I would have enjoyed this book more if the authors had focused on interesting real-world examples rather than on mouse-catching examples.

Superficial introduction to the world of calculus. The cat analogy is minimal and not really used to its fullest potential. Overall the book is good at explaining the mechanics of applying calculus rules to functions, but, there are not enough examples and the examples are not applied; lots of kids/adults can apply the rules, but that doesn't give you the "ownership" of the concept that applied examples would give. Also, there is not a lot of depth to the description of the mechanics, but, I dont think that is really expected by people that would buy this book, so, it is ok.

I expected a volume of cute cat problems that need to be solved with calculus and instead got some cursory weird cat atmosphere and a couple examples that were really strained to make work. Most of the time, the cat analogy is just to say "blah blah... and a cat finds this interesting". Pictures would have been fun as well -- no pictures... there are a few figures.

The title is cute; the book will look good on my shelf. I originally wanted to give this book 3 stars. For minimal descriptions of mechanistics, it is worth 3 stars -- but, then I realized I bought the book mostly because I like cat stuff and the book is about on a 1 star level for doing justice to cat-ness; so, I settled on 2 stars.