I’m not particularly good at math, but yes, yes we are. If you get even just a decent textbook - buy one used at a college bookstore or something - and just work through it slowly, you’ll start to get it. It’s hard to sum up several semesters of math in a message board post.
I stopped taking math after Calc II but those two calc classes were really fascinating to me. Calculus has a sort of amazing elegance to it. If you’re really curious, find a textbook and maybe a smart friend for when you get stuck, and just read it and work math problems.
A couple of things about the Berlinski book Malodorous mentioned. I’m in the minority here but I did not like it at all.
First Berlinski is a creationist of the Mike Behe school. This shouldn’t and doesn’t affect a book on calculus but I thought it was something you should know before you read him.
Second, and more important, I found his writing style to be incredibly cloying, cute and pretentious. I know I’m in the minority here, but he seems more interested in showing how clever and funny he is rather than in explaining Calculus. There were several times when I wanted to throw the book accross the room and yell “Get to the F@#king point already!!” (FTR, I did not learn he was a creationist until after I read the book and already disliked him.)
Finally, and most important. I think it is a mistake to learn about a mathematical subject from a book which avoids math. You can learn the facts of science from a non-mathematical book but not math itself, IMO. It’s similar to literature and language in that way. You can read French literature in translation and get at least some idea of what’s going on, but the only way to learn French is to actually learn French.
Of course I already new basic Calculus when I read Berlinski so YMMV. As I said, I’m in the minority in disliking the book.
I would echo Excalibre’s advice. Get a textbook and work through it, doing at least a few problems from each set. As RM Mentock implies, you may want to refresh yourself on trig beforehand. If you don’t, just skip the bits that involve trig. If textbooks are too expensive, you can use outlines from Schaums or Barrons. The only thing I would note about the outlines is that they emphasize practical problem solving skills and don’t really go into theory, which may interest you the most, if you’re learning this out of curiosity.
I figure that if I get halfway through A Tour of the Calculus and I still haven’t learned anything, I’ll put that down and find some Fundamentals of Calculus textbook. This is something I’d very much like to learn and am definitely willing to work hard at it.
“Beware the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.”
Do we now have to qualify everything about every author of a book?
This one’s written by a homosexual.
This one’s by a creationist.
This one’s by an evolutionist, but not a Darwinist.
This one’s by an accused child molester (but he was never prosecuted).
This one believes in right-to-life.
This one believes in abortion.
This one is a republican (politcal books aside).
When I found out that Berlinski was a creationist, I went to go read some of his writings. I’m as Darwinist as they come, but I was interested to see how someone whose intellegence I respect would attack Darwinism, as the normal creationist arguements are usually more about FUD then any sort of actual reasonable flaw with Darwinism. Sadly, as you say, he was more or less Behe redux, which is far above the normal creationist arguements, but far from honest arguements against evolution.
As you say though, it’s got nothing to do with his writing on calculus.
A matter of taste I suppose. I think the idea is to keep the readers interest. I liked the style anyhoo.
This is actually why I recomended the book. Calc is a subject that seems almost trivial once you’ve moved beyond it into higher math classes, but for the beginner the key concepts can seem very strange, anti-intuitive and arbitrary. In my opinion Berlinski does his intended audience a favor by preceeding slowly, stressing repetition of key concepts, etc. (which might otherwise be boring, which is why his “cute” writing style is something of a necessity to keeping the readers interest). He also explains very simple things, like what a function is, which I think is important, as the OP seems to be fairly unsophisticated mathmatically.
I actually think it’s easier to make the opposite mistake, to learn all the mechanics of moving equations around to find deriviative, integrals, etc. so that you can pass a calc class, but still never understand the basic concepts of a limit, a derivative or even a function. Berlinski stresses concepts first. When the OP finishes the book, I think he will, should his interest continue, be better equiped to attack a “real” textbook (or even understand the earlier posts in this thread.
Tell us how it goes Agent Foxtrot, I used to teach undergrads Calc I and hope to do so again. I’d appriciate hearing how you find various approches
Tanget here, but in my current English course one of the main things my instructors teaches is critical reading - analyzing the subject as well as the author to best understand his or her perspective.
Agent Foxtrot, Since you are a charter member, try the search tool at the top of this page to find previous threads on this topic. I could swear that we had a lengthy thread on this not too long ago when someone wanted to know what calculus is all about, and another thread on why it’s even taught. But the best way to learn is to get a good book and plow through it (be sure to do the exercises!).
Okay, I’ll admit to being completely befoozled by this comment. If it doesn’t affect the book, why do we need to know it?
This I can understand. He has his own peculiar writing style, which is not going to be for everyone. Personally, I think about half the time I liked it, half the time I got annoyed by it.
That depends on whether you want to learn, in general, what Calculus is, or whether you want to learn to “do” Calculus. If the latter, you definitely need a solid grounding in algebra, and you need to work through the mathematical details of some problems for yourself. If the former, well, you may be able to get some idea of the grand concepts without getting into the mathematical details, but the more math you do grasp, the more sense everything will make. I guess.
Just FTR, I didn’t mean to bring up Berlinski’s Creationism as a point for or against the book. I just thought it was an interesting fact about the author. I know I was quite startled to find it out months after I had read his book. You very rarely find Creationists writing popular science books that aren’t polemics against evolution.
Again, I know I’m in the minority in not liking the book, and I can’t say how I would have responded to it if it was my first introduction to calc. I just thought the OP might like a minority opinion about the book.
Well, yeah, I agree with you for English and literature and propaganda. But for calculus? Anyone remember the “if LOTR were written by other writers thread”? Someone please show me in this thread how a male, gay, communist, darwinist, cross-dressing, pro-choice black writer would put a paragraph and example in calculus compared to, say, an Irish immigrant, Catholic, right-to-life, with a secret, closeted fetish for leather would put together the same sample problem and explanation.