''Calculus Made Easy'' is a book on

infinitesimal calculus Calculus is the mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithmetic operations. Originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of ...

originally published in 1910 by

Silvanus P. Thompson Silvanus Phillips Thompson (19 June 1851 – 12 June 1916) was an English professor of physics at the City and Guilds Technical College in Finsbury, England. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1891 and was known for his work as an electr ...

. The original text continues to be available as of 2008 from

Macmillan and Co. Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd in the United Kingdom and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC in the United States) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be on ...

, but a 1998 update by

Martin Gardner Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing magic, scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writin ...

is available from

St. Martin's Press St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in Manhattan in New York City. It is headquartered in the Equitable Building (New York City), Equitable Building. St. Martin's Press is considered one of the largest English-language publishe ...

which provides an introduction; three preliminary chapters explaining functions,

limits Limit or Limits may refer to: Arts and media * ''Limit'' (manga), a manga by Keiko Suenobu * ''Limit'' (film), a South Korean film * Limit (music), a way to characterize harmony * "Limit" (song), a 2016 single by Luna Sea * "Limits", a 2009 ...

, and

derivative In mathematics, the derivative is a fundamental tool that quantifies the sensitivity to change of a function's output with respect to its input. The derivative of a function of a single variable at a chosen input value, when it exists, is t ...

s; an appendix of recreational calculus problems; and notes for modern readers. Gardner changes "fifth form boys" to the more American sounding (and gender neutral) "high school students," updates many now obsolescent mathematical notations or terms, and uses American decimal dollars and cents in currency examples. ''Calculus Made Easy'' ignores the use of

with its epsilon-delta definition, replacing it with a method of approximating (to arbitrary precision) directly to the correct answer in the

infinitesimal In mathematics, an infinitesimal number is a non-zero quantity that is closer to 0 than any non-zero real number is. The word ''infinitesimal'' comes from a 17th-century Modern Latin coinage ''infinitesimus'', which originally referred to the " ...

spirit of

Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to many ...

, now formally justified in modern

nonstandard analysis The history of calculus is fraught with philosophical debates about the meaning and logical validity of fluxions or infinitesimal numbers. The standard way to resolve these debates is to define the operations of calculus using (ε, δ)-definitio ...

and smooth infinitesimal analysis. The first edition was published in 1910 and was reprinted four times. A second edition followed in 1914 and received fifteen reprints. A third edition, only slightly modified from the second, was reprinted six times by 1967. The original text is now in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

under

US copyright law The copyright law of the United States grants monopoly protection for "original works of authorship". With the stated purpose to promote art and culture, copyright law assigns a set of exclusive rights to authors: to make and sell copies of thei ...

(although Macmillan's copyright under UK law is reproduced in the 1998 edition from St. Martin's Press). It can be freely accessed on

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital li ...

References

External links

* Silvanus P. Thompson
''Calculus Made Easy: Being a Very-Simplest Introduction to Those Beautiful Methods of Reckoning which Are Generally Called by the Terrifying Names of the Differential Calculus and the Integral Calculus''
(New York: MacMillan Company, 2nd Ed., 1914). Also available as th
(London: MacMillan and Co., Limited, 2nd Ed., 1914)
printing, which isn't published under Thompson's name, but instead has the

byline The byline (or by-line in British English) on a newspaper or magazine article gives the name of the writer of the article. Bylines are commonly placed between the headline and the text of the article, although some magazines (notably '' Reader's ...

of "by F.R.S." (i.e.,

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

). * (Re-typeset in LaTeX) *
''Calculus Made Easy'' online

Public-domain modernized edition based on the Project Gutenberg text
1910 non-fiction books Works by Martin Gardner Mathematics textbooks {{maths-lit-stub

Further reading

References

External links