Infinite Powers

From preeminent math personality and author of The Joy of x, a brilliant and endlessly appealing popular science explanation of calculus—how it works and why it makes our lives immeasurably better. Without calculus, we wouldn't have cell phones, TV, GPS, or ultrasound. We wouldn't have unraveled DNA or discovered Neptune or figured out how to put 5,000 songs in your pocket. Though many of us were scared away from this essential, engrossing subject in high school and college, Steven Strogatz's brilliantly creative, down-to-earth history of science shows that calculus is not about complexity; it's about simplicity. It harnesses an unreal number—infinity—to tackle real-world problems, breaking them down into easier ones and then reassembling the answers into solutions that feel miraculous. Infinite Powers recounts how calculus tantalized and thrilled its inventors, starting with its first glimmers in ancient Greece and bringing us right up to the discovery of gravitational waves (a phenomenon predicted by calculus). Strogatz reveals how this form of math and physics rose to the challenges of each age: how to determine the area of a circle with only sand and a stick; how to explain why Mars goes "backwards" sometimes; how to make electricity with magnets; how to ensure your rocket doesn't miss the moon; how to turn the tide in the fight against AIDS with differential equations. As Strogatz proves, calculus is truly the language of the universe. By unveiling the principles of that language, Infinite Powers makes us marvel at the world anew. This is not a textbook; it's a vibrant history of the brilliant, often flawed, human beings who mastered the language of the universe and harnessed its power. The Infinity Principle: Learn the core strategy of calculus—how to solve complex, real-world problems by breaking them into infinitely many, gloriously simple pieces. The Ancient Greek Origins: Travel back to see how pioneers like Archimedes first wrestled with infinity to find the area of a circle with nothing but sand and a stick. The Newtonian Revolution: Uncover how Isaac Newton cracked the code of the universe, explaining everything from the arc of a cannonball to why Mars sometimes appears to move "backwards" in the sky. The Language of the Universe: See how this form of mathematics became the true language of nature, leading to the discovery of Neptune, the fight against AIDS, and the technologies behind GPS and cell phones.