Calculus Diaries : A Year Discovering How Maths Can Help You Lose Weight, Win In Vegas And Survive A Zombie Apocalypse

Description

Jennifer Ouellette never took maths in the sixth form, mostly because she - like most people - assumed that she wouldn't need it in real life. But then the English-graduate-turned-award-winning-science-writer had a change of heart and decided to revisit those equations and formulas that had haunted her for years. The Calculus Diaries is the fun and fascinating account of her year spent confronting her number-phobia head on. With real wit and verve, Ouellette shows how she learned to apply calculus to everything from petrol mileages to dieting, from rollercoaster rides to shooting cards in Las Vegas - proving that anyone can learn the fundamentals of maths' universal language, and make the world a whole lot more comprehensible.

Reviews

I haven't had this much fun learning math since I watched the Count on Sesame Street when I was three. And the Count never talked about log flumes or zombies. "New York Times"

If, like me, you love the neatness of calculus but never appreciated its applications or the colourful characters who have used it through history, then these diaries are well worth a read."New Scientist"

Author description

Jennifer Ouellette is a recovering English graduate who stumbled into science writing as a struggling freelance writer in New York and found it was the perfect career for her. She has been avidly exploring her inner geek ever since. Jennifer's work has appeared in the Washington Post, Discover, Nature, Symmetry, Physics World and New Scientist. She maintains a general science-and-culture group blog called Cocktail Party Physics and also blogs about physics and space science for Discovery News. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, cosmologist Sean Carroll.