View source for Calculus Made Easy

{{Short description|1910 book on infinitesimal calculus by Silvanus P. Thompson}}

{{Infobox book
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| name              = Calculus Made Easy
| image             = [[File:Calculus Made Easy.pdf|page=11|frameless|250px]]
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| author            = [[Silvanus P. Thompson]]
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| country           = [[United Kingdom]]
| language          = [[English language|English]]
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| genre             = [[infinitesimal calculus]]
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| pub_date          = 1910 
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| wikisource        = Calculus Made Easy
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[[File:Calculus Made Easy - Fig 12.png|If the “curve” happens to be a straight line, the value of <math>\tfrac {dy}{dx}</math> will be the same at all points along it. In other words its ''slope'' is constant.|thumb]]
[[File:Calculus Made Easy - Fig 13.png|If a curve is one that turns more upwards as it goes along to the right, the values of <math>\tfrac {dy}{dx}</math> will become greater and greater with the increasing steepness.|thumb]]
'''''Calculus Made Easy''''' is a book on [[infinitesimal calculus]] originally published in 1910 by [[Silvanus P. Thompson]]. The original text continues to be available as of 2008 from [[Macmillan and Co.]], but a 1998 update by [[Martin Gardner]] is available from [[St. Martin's Press]] which provides an introduction; three preliminary chapters explaining [[Function (mathematics)|functions]], [[Limit (mathematics)|limits]], and [[derivative]]s; an appendix of [[Recreational mathematics|recreational calculus]] problems; and notes for modern readers.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Thompson |first=Silvanus P. |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-1-349-15058-8 |title=Calculus Made Easy |last2=Gardner |first2=Martin |date=1998 |publisher=Macmillan Education UK |isbn=978-0-333-77243-0 |location=London |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-1-349-15058-8}}</ref> 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 [[limit of a function|limits]] with its [[Limit of a function#(ε, δ)-definition of limit|epsilon-delta definition]], replacing it with a method of approximating (to arbitrary precision) directly to the correct answer in the [[infinitesimal]] spirit of [[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz|Leibniz]], now formally justified in modern [[nonstandard analysis]] 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.<ref>{{cite journal|jstor=3613636 |title=none |last=Parsonson |first=J. L. |journal=The Mathematical Gazette |year=1967 |volume=51 |number=375 |pages=62–63}}</ref> The original text is now in the [[public domain]] under [[Copyright law of the United States|US copyright law]] (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]].

== Further reading ==
* ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'', [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v86/n2158/abs/086041c0.html Vol. 86, No. 2158 (March 9, 1911), p. 41]. {{doi|10.1038/086041c0}}. A review of the first edition. [https://archive.org/stream/naturejournal86londuoft#page/41/mode/1up Internet Archive]; [https://books.google.com/books?id=QY5FAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA41&dq=%22calculus%20made%20easy%22 Google Books].
* Carl Linderholm, ''[[College Mathematics Journal]]'', [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2687108 Vol. 31, No. 1 (January, 2000), pp. 77-79]. A review of Silvanus P. Thompson, revised by Martin Gardner, ''Calculus Made Easy'' (St. Martin's Press, 1998).

==References==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
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{{Wikiquotes}}
{{Wikisource}}
* Silvanus P. Thompson, [http://djm.cc/library/Calculus_Made_Easy_Thompson.pdf ''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 the [https://books.google.com/books?id=BrhBAAAAYAAJ (London: MacMillan and Co., Limited, 2nd Ed., 1914)] printing, which isn't published under Thompson's name, but instead has the [[byline]] of "by F.R.S." (i.e., [[Fellow of the Royal Society]]).
* {{Gutenberg|no=33283|name=Calculus Made Easy}} (Re-typeset in LaTeX)
* {{librivox book | title=Calculus Made Easy| author=Thompson}}
* [http://calculusmadeeasy.org/ ''Calculus Made Easy'' online]
* [https://www.sunclipse.org/?p=3194 Public-domain modernized edition based on the Project Gutenberg text]

{{Martin Gardner}}

[[Category:1910 non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Works by Martin Gardner]]
[[Category:Mathematics textbooks]]


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