- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: High Stakes Publishing; New edition edition (24 Jun 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1843440369
- ISBN-13: 978-1843440369
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 745,874 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Now regarded as the bane of many college students' existence, calculus was one of the most important mathematical innovations of the seventeenth century. But a dispute over its discovery sewed the seeds of discontent between two of the greatest scientific giants of all time - Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Today Newton and Leibniz are generally considered the twin independent inventors of calculus, and they are both credited with giving mathematics its greatest push forward since the time of the Greeks. Had they known each other under different circumstances, they might have been friends. But in their own lifetimes, the joint glory of calculus was not enough for either and each declared war against the other, openly and in secret. This long and bitter dispute has been swept under the carpet by historians - perhaps because it reveals Newton and Leibniz in their worst light - but "The Calculus Wars" tells the full story in narrative form for the first time. This vibrant and gripping account ultimately exposes how these twin mathematical giants were brilliant, proud, at times mad and, in the end, completely human.
About the Author
Jason Bardi attended graduate school at Johns Hopkins University where he studied in the Biophysics and the Writing Seminars Departments. He is now senior science writer at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
What's It All About?,
By
This review is from: The Calculus Wars (Hardcover)
It's difficult to work out who would benefit from this book or even who would want to read it. If you know nothing at all about the calculus - a branch of mathematics which seems almost magical - you will wonder what all the fuss is about as there is hardly any real information on the importance of this subject; if you do have a knowledge of the subject, then you will be very dissappointed as the mathematical contents is virtually nil - an appendix, at least, would have been useful. There are many interesting historical anecdotes, although they are often not related to the central subject, but many bad errors; for example James ll is described as Charles ll's son and Henry Vlll is said to have been buried in Westminster Abbey. There is a dreadfully bad picture of what is said to be the front of this building and which is actually the west transept anyway.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
interesting but woefully edited,
By alkyceltzer (Germany) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Calculus Wars (Hardcover)
In places very interesting re the clash of these two giants and I learnt a lot more details about their dispute. However, my enjoyment of the book was spoiled by the unbelievable number of typos and IMO the very poor grammatical quality of the writing. The book is crying out for editing by a competent proof-reader and literate editor.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Needs an editor,
By
This review is from: The Calculus Wars (Hardcover)
Bardi writes in a wildly variable style which is infuriating to the discerning reader. There are occasional typographical errors, frequent grammatical solecisms (split infinitives aren't always wrong, but they are here!), the use of ?! and frequent unnecessary references to the author himself eg p29 "I saw a copy of this notebook on display..." followed by an account of the reactions of a woman and her son. He refers to France anachronistically as a "superpower", and refers to "the Brits" in what is an unforgivable colloquiallism and another anachronism, as Britain did not exist at the time writing as anything other than a geographical entity. There is also lots of flabby repetition. No doubt a good book is to be made of this subject, (probably by Lisa Jardine) but this certainly isn't it.
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