Oscar E. Fernandez

This book is an introduction to the calculus of things that many of us experience everyday. The author takes the reader through a hypothetical 'day-in-the-life' of a math professor, and teaches the fundamental ideas of calculus along the way.

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. I think part of the problem was a mismatch of my expectations. I was hoping for something that took things from everyday experience and demonstrated unexpected connections or conclusions through the underlying mathematics. While there is some of that, it is only weakly connected. I hoped for something more like Ian Stewart or the equivalent to Stephen Jay Gould. But, this book is mainly an introduction to calculus through a series of contrived problems.

One thing that is disappointing is the number of errors in the book. Not typos or incidental errors, but flat-out wrong physical explanations; In the section, "why do we survive rainy days", the author claims that terminal velocity occurs because rain drops coalesce!? After reading that (near the beginning of the book), it is hard not to view the remainder more skeptically and see that there really are a lot of errors.… (mehr)