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The Calculus and Pizza: A Cookbook for the Hungry Mind
Delicious fast food for the mind that makes learning calculus as easy as eating a slice Calculus and Pizza is a surprisingly tasty overview of calculus from master chef Cliff Pickover. A fun feast for the mind that goes down easy, this is an excellent primer for novices who'd like to quickly master the essential rules, formulas, and toppings in calculus.
It's also a great review for readers who took calculus in school and who'd like to reacquaint themselves with the subject. A perfect complement to more comprehensive texts and guides, such as Wiley's popular Calculus Self-Teaching Guide, Calculus and Pizza follows the adventures of Luigi, a pizza maker with a mathematical bent. It gets readers quickly up and running with basic calculus concepts and formulas and then cuts to the chase with all the problem-solving techniques needed to make a pizza pie, including everything from calculating the speed of a hunk of tossed pizza dough to deriving the expansion rate of a slice of melting mozzarella. Clifford Pickover (Millwood, NY) is a research staff member at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center and a prolific author of books and articles on science, art, and mathematics. His other books include Black Holes: A Traveler's Guide (0-471-19704-1) and Keys to Infinity (0-471-19334-8), both from Wiley.
Contents:
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Pizza Velocity and the Derivative
Derivative Definitions and Rules
Derivatives and and Slopes
Rules for Products and Quotients
Chain Rule and Implicit Differentiation
Maxima and Minima
Min-Max Pizza Applications
Exponentials and Logarithms
Limits and Continuity
Related Rates
Integration
Logarithmic Differentiation, Integration by Parts, Trigonometric Substitution, and Partial Fractions
Exponential Growth and Decay
Calculus and Computers
Multiple Integrals
Calculus in a Nutshell
Luigi's Mind-Boggling Workout Routine
Conclusion
Answers
Further Reading
Index.
Brief Description:
A creative and surprisingly delicious overview of calculus from master chef Cliff Pickover, this title emphasizes learning by doing, with many short chapters and problems on the practical application of calculus - for example, in the calculation of the speed of tossed pizza pie dough.
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