Customer Reviews

Excursions in Calculus: An Interplay of the Continuous and the Discrete (Dolciani Mathematical Expositions)

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

 

 

I know of very few people who can make mathematics come alive the way Prof. Robert Young (Oberlin College) does. I have been a student of his for the past year-and-a-half. With him my mathematical maturity, integrity, and knowledge have soared. The acquisition of Excursions In Calculus has added tremendously to my growth.
Prof. Young's book is a collection of some of his favourite topics in teaching elementary calculus and analysis. Intended for both teachers and motivated students of the calculus, he takes the reader through several beautiful realms of mathematical inquiry and discovery. His topics are diverse: infinite sums and products (including a brilliant presentation of some of the work of Euler, one of his favourite mathematicians), exponential spirals, Wallis's formula for pi, chaos and fractals, Cantor functions, the Weierstrass approximation theorem, and many more with an ambitious appendix on modular arithmetic and related topics such as the celebrated Chinese Remainder Theorem.
Prof. Young treats each of his subjects with not only the highest responsibility and technical acuity of a trained professional mathematician, but also with the greatest reverence and passion for the glorious field to which he has devoted his life. The book reads not like a sterile mathematical text but as an intricately woven epic of centuries of mathematical inquiry and the rich personalities responsible. Complete with hundreds of very challenging and non-trivial exercises, this book has something for everyone, whether a motivated student of freshman calculus or a sophisticated mathematician. None will be bored, all will be mystified.

This unique book is a precious addition to anyone's bookshelf, whether student or teacher. The material within is fun and fascinating. Much of it is accessible to those with minimal knowledge of calculus, yet the book also contains some deep topics and outlines a number of unsolved problems in mathematics. Many recurring themes appear in the book, including the interplay between the finite and infinite, the discrete and continuous, and the connections between fields such as analysis and number theory.

This is one of those rare books that actually teaches people how to think "outside the box"--how to come up with different ways of looking at things, creative ways of solving problems. The author places an emphasis on simplicity and elegance.

If you want a book that will be a fun, easy read, yet that you will keep coming back to over and over again--or if you want a book to help you create some new and fun problems--or if you feel like you need a little infusion of that mathematical creativity that is so critically needed in advanced mathematical work, this book will be able to help you a great deal.