eBook - ePub
Infinite Powers
How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe
- 400 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
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.
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.
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.
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.
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). 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.
As Strogatz proves, calculus is truly the language of the universe. By unveiling the principles of that language, Infinite Powers makes us marvel at the world anew.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, you can cancel anytime from the Subscription tab in your account settings on the Perlego website. Your subscription will stay active until the end of your current billing period. Learn how to cancel your subscription.
At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.
Perlego offers two plans: Essential and Complete
- Essential is ideal for learners and professionals who enjoy exploring a wide range of subjects. Access the Essential Library with 800,000+ trusted titles and best-sellers across business, personal growth, and the humanities. Includes unlimited reading time and Standard Read Aloud voice.
- Complete: Perfect for advanced learners and researchers needing full, unrestricted access. Unlock 1.4M+ books across hundreds of subjects, including academic and specialized titles. The Complete Plan also includes advanced features like Premium Read Aloud and Research Assistant.
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Yes! You can use the Perlego app on both iOS or Android devices to read anytime, anywhere — even offline. Perfect for commutes or when you’re on the go.
Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access Infinite Powers by Steven Strogatz,Strogatz, Steven in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Military & Maritime History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Index
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
Note: Illustrations are indicated by italics
A
Abu Sa’d al-A’la Ibn Sahl, 116
acceleration, 141–42, 172–75, 230–31, 258
Achilles and the Tortoise paradox, 17–19, 17, 162
acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), 218–25
Adams, Douglas, viii
Adams, John, 239
adequality, 106–7
aeroelastic flutter, 246–47
AIDS, 218–25
air resistance, 69–71
aircraft engineering, 244–47
algebra
Achilles and the Tortoise paradox, 19
birthplace of, 90
distance, rate and time, 145
geometry, merge with, 93–96, 98
history of, 89–93
Newton on, 102
optimization problems, 103–7
popularity of, xx–xxi
symbols vs spoken language, 67
tangents of curves, 168
Wallis on, 196
xy plane, 177
al-Khwarizmi, Muhammad Ibn Musa, 92
AlphaInfinity, 292–93, 294
AlphaZero, 292, 293
altimeter, 213–16
American Revolution, 239
Ampère, André-Marie, x–xi
Ampère’s law, xi
amplitude, 109–10, 254
analysis vs synthesis, 102–3
analytic geometry, 101–3
analytic number theory, 228
ancient civilizations
algebra and geometry, 90–91, 95
area of a circle, 7
Descartes on, 102
Egypt, 1
geography of Greece, 90
geometry vs arithmetic, 33
Greeks on curves, 3–4
instantaneous speed, 162
musical harmony, xiv, 48
planetary motion, 62, 63
synthesis vs analysis, 102
view of numbers and symbols, 95–96
Anderson, Carl, 298
animated movies, 50–53
anti-electron, 298
antimatter,...
Table of contents
- Title Page
- Contents
- Copyright
- Introduction
- Infinity
- The Man Who Harnessed Infinity
- Discovering the Laws of Motion
- The Dawn of Differential Calculus
- The Crossroads
- The Vocabulary of Change
- The Secret Fountain
- Fictions of the Mind
- The Logical Universe
- Making Waves
- The Future of Calculus
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgments
- Illustration Credits
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Sample Chapter from JOY OF X
- Buy the Book
- About the Author
- Connect on Social Media