Wonderful Math Book Prologue!

[Thorsteinn]

Here is the prologue for 'Calculus Made Easy' which I just received:

"Considering how many fools can calculate, it is surprising that it should be thought either a difficult or a tedious task for any other fool to learn how to master the same tricks.

 Some calculus-tricks are quite easy. Some are enormously difficult. The fools who write the textbooks of advanced mathematics--and they are mostly clever fools--seldom take the trouble to show you how easy the easy calculations are. On the contrary, they seem to desire to impress you with their tremendous cleverness by going about it in the most difficult way.

 Being myself a remarkably stupid fellow, I have had to unteach myself the difficulties, and now beg to present to my fellow fools the parts that are not hard. Master these thoroughly, and the rest will  follow. What one fool can do, another can."

 

It give me hope I can pass higher than Basic College Math when I change my major next year.

-Ivan

[Sir James A]

Sounds like an awesome class

[Thorsteinn]

Not for a class. It's to help me pass the classes to come next year and the years following.

[Sir Edward]

Excellent. I might have to take a look at some point. Calculus is what finally broke me in school. I was able to handle everything else up until then (though I didn't completely grok trig until I started using it programming).

[Sir William]

I stopped at Trig...I looked at the pre-Calc textbook in high school and had no idea what I was looking at beyond the fact that it was math or math-based.  Hey, I was selecting courses for my junior year and was not really trying to get into anything too tough.  I opted for advanced algebra and geometry (single semester courses) and sailed (comparatively speaking, I would've flunked out of pre-Calc I'm reasonably sure). 

Ivan, thanks for sharing, I'm going to check into that book.

[Sir James A]

Not for a class. It's to help me pass the classes to come next year and the years following.

I thought it was the textbook for class, sorry.

[Thorsteinn]

I got off my ass just now and rented the math textbook for the CLEP test I want to take so that I can graduate for $20 from Chegg.com.

Then I can go after the friggin Calculus.

Either I'm getting over that nasty flu-lung thing or I'm getting sick of having nothing to do.

-Ivan

(Math 120:Fundamentals of College Mathematics is the class I need for my degree)