Calculus for Cats

I have done physics, statics, strength of materials, and basic circuit analysis all at the algebra level because I never knew what calculus was. This book explains what calculus is without doing the math. After reading this book I read "Who is Fourier" by College of Lex and "Calculus The Easy Way" by Douglas Downing. And finally learn what Calculus is.

In my continuing quest to always be the source of all information for my son, Calculus For Cats has saved me! As his math skills continued, I was starting to pay for sleeping through Calculus in High School. But Ken Amdahl saved me. This is a perfect book for anyone wanting to learn the concepts of Calculus ... even if you hate math and cats!

This book was amazing. It took something that we, from the outside of the math world, find enormously complex and confusing and through imagery and the imagination of the authors, made it understandable and accessible. I recommend it highly, especially to anyone who is about to take calculus for the first time. If you read this, you will be able to conceptualize what you are learning about....essential to truly understanding mathematics.

Calculus isn't my subject. I found its study frustrating, and the authors of Calculus for cats obviously sympathize with my plight. I had read their Algebra Unplugged which helped to refresh my memory even about the more than basic principles of that study. Approaching calculus, I had a lot less confidence. The nice thing about this book is that you don't need confidence in your math abilities to enjoy it. The authors postulate that calculus was invented by cats who have a vested interest in keeping the real meaning of the discipline, not to mention its practice, out of human hands. Math books are written to obscure understanding not enhance it, and the cats love it. Cats the authors explain are constantly scurrying after mice, and they use the calculations of calculus to catch them. Each function, or as your math book would say, each f(x) (or y), is really a mouse that the cat is scurrying to catch. You can too. There are many amusing images, notably a cat at the center of a circle holding a long rope with another cat holding the other end skating around it. The authors also get down to much nitty gritty about notation and explain why different subjects like physics or economics or even different branches of pure mathematics use different notations to mean the same thing. It's all stuff that's very useful for a student to know ahead of time. (It helps to know that you will study second derivatives after you study first derivatives for example. That is it helps to have a comprehensible outline before you start the class.) It doesn't substitute for the calculus class itself, but I got a much better sense of what calculus' aims really are and how it works. Now if only I could figure out how to tackle those nasty little exponents.