Everyday Calculus: Discovering the Hidden Math All around Us

by Oscar E. Fernandez, Oscar E. Fernandez (Preface by)

Overview

A fun look at calculus in our everyday lives

Calculus. For some of us, the word conjures up memories of ten-pound textbooks and visions of tedious abstract equations. And yet, in reality, calculus is fun and accessible, and surrounds us everywhere we go. In Everyday Calculus, Oscar Fernandez demonstrates that calculus can be used to explore practically any aspect of our lives, including the most effective number of hours to sleep and the fastest route to get to work. He also shows that calculus can be both useful—determining which seat at the theater leads to the best viewing experience, for instance—and fascinating—exploring topics such as time travel and the age of the universe. Throughout, Fernandez presents straightforward concepts, and no prior mathematical knowledge is required. For advanced math fans, the mathematical derivations are included in the appendixes. The book features a new preface that alerts readers to new interactive online content, including demonstrations linked to specific figures in the book as well as an online supplement. Whether you're new to mathematics or already a curious math enthusiast, Everyday Calculus will convince even die-hard skeptics to view this area of math in a whole new way.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691175751
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	03/07/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	168
Sales rank:	425,130
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Oscar E. Fernandez is assistant professor of mathematics at Wellesley College. He is the author of The Calculus of Happiness (Princeton).

Table of Contents

Preface ix
Calculus Topics Discussed by Chapter xi
CHAPTER 1 Wake Up and Smell the Functions 1
What's Trig Got to Do with Your Morning? 2
How a Rational Function Defeated Thomas Edison, and Why Induction Powers the World 5
The Logarithms Hidden in the Air 10
The Frequency of Trig Functions 14
Galileo's Parabolic Thinking 17
CHAPTER 2 Breakfast at Newton's 21
Introducing Calculus, the CNBC Way 21
Coffee Has Its Limits 25
A Multivitamin a Day Keeps the Doctor Away 30
Derivatives Are about Change 34
CHAPTER 3 Driven by Derivatives 35
Why Do We Survive Rainy Days? 36
Politics in Derivatives, or Derivatives in Politics? 39
What the Unemployment Rate Teaches Us about the Curvature of Graphs 41
America's Ballooning Population 44
Feeling Derivatives 46
The Calculus of Time Travel 47
CHAPTER 4 Connected by Calculus 51
E-Mails, Texts, Tweets, Ah! 51
The Calculus of Colds 53
What Does Sustainability Have to Do with Catching a Cold? 56
What Does Your Retirement Income Have to Do with Traffic? 58
The Calculus of the Sweet Tooth 61
CHAPTER 5 Take a Derivative and You'll Feel Better 65
I "Heart" Differentials 65
How Life (and Nature) Uses Calculus 67
The Costly Downside of Calculus 73
The Optimal Drive Back Home 75
Catching Speeders Efficiently with Calculus 77
CHAPTER 6 Adding Things Up, the Calculus Way 81
The Little Engine That Could . . . Integrate 82
The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus 90
Using Integrals to Estimate Wait Times 93
CHAPTER 7 Derivatives Integrals: The Dream Team 97
Integration at Work-Tandoori Chicken 98
Finding the Best Seat in the House 101
Keeping the T Running with Calculus 104
Look Up to Look Back in Time 108
The Ultimate Fate of the Universe 109
The Age of the Universe 113
Epilogue 116
Appendix A Functions and Graphs 119
Appendices 1-7 125
Notes 147
Index 149

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Everyday Calculus tracks a day in the life of mathematician Oscar Fernandez, from his morning cup of joe to his night out at the theater, and lets us see the world the way he does: written in equations, the language of nature. He gently guides the reader through the basics of derivatives and integrals, revealing the hidden connections lurking just beneath the surface of our daily lives."—Jennifer Ouellette, author of The Calculus Diaries

"Calculus has played an essential role in the development of engineering, medicine, physics, chemistry, geology, statistics, and a variety of other areas. But where is it in our everyday lives? In this beautiful book, Oscar Fernandez answers that question by noting all of the ways that calculus appears in the world around us, from the coffee cooling on the counter to the rain drops hitting an umbrella. You will never look at daily life in quite the same way again."—Colin Adams, coauthor of How to Ace Calculus

"With a clear style and refreshing approach, this book shows how elementary calculus is relevant to practical day-to-day events familiar to us all."—John Adam, author of X and the City: Modeling Aspects of Urban Life

"A fun and delightful read."—Thomas Garrity, Williams College

Editorial Reviews

"Written in a bright conversational tone, [Everyday Calculus] wonderfully integrates calculus into everyday life."

Guardian

"A very captivating read, and certainly contains something for everyone. . . [E]asy to drop into for individual chapters, or to read when you have a couple hours spare. [Everyday Calculus] will certainly open the eyes of any reader who wishes to appreciate the mathematics and calculus which surrounds us."

Mathematics Today

"Written in a bright conversational tone, this book wonderfully integrates calculus into everyday life."

GrrrlScientist

"A delightful read. [Everyday Calculus] will make you laugh and capture your imagination. . . . [A] triumph in the pursuit of the lofty goal of comprehending the world."

San Francisco Book Review

"Fernandez is a delightfully quirky writer and his bookEveryday Calculusis lighthearted and compelling."

New York Journal of Books

"Fernandez presents a broad array of ordinary events like REM sleep, drinking coffee, commuting to work, setting aside money for retirement, catching a cold, enjoying tandoori chicken, and watching a movie. . . . [T]hen ties each aspect to pertinent mathematics. . . . As the subtitle of the book suggests, the thrust is more one of ‘discovering the hidden math all around us' rather than showing ‘how mathematics is used,' which provides an honest and very pleasurable journey."

Choice

"The book offers in clear and concise fashion much of the material found in a traditional calculus textbook, but presents it beginning with a real world observation and then developing the mathematics needed to understand the observation."

AAAS

American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Books for General Audiences and Young Adults

One of American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Books for General Audiences and Young Adults 2014

From the Publisher

★ 03/03/2014
For every befuddled math student who’s ever sat in class and thought, “When am I ever going to use this?” Fernandez, assistant professor of mathematics at Wellesley College, gleefully reveals the truth: the world really does run on math. He takes a day-in-the-life approach to his subject: getting out of bed introduces trigonometry and how it can be used to describe and predict sleep cycles, while water running from a faucet allows him to address gravity and how its influence shapes motion into parabolic curves. The morning news leads to derivatives and how they can chart unemployment rates and population growth. A stray thought during a morning meeting stirs up the calculus of catching cold. Whether describing how biology uses math to design more efficient organs and body structures or the best way to figure out when to overhaul a subway car, Fernandez keeps the tone light, as entertaining as it is informative. The book will speak most strongly to readers with some experience in trigonometry and basic calculus, but it’s also accessible to those willing to put in a little extra effort. Either way, Fernandez’s witty, delightful approach makes for a winning introduction to the wonderland of math behind the scenes of everyday life. Illus. (May)

Publishers Weekly