teaching yourself

[intothevoidx]

I was possibly thinking about teaching myself calculus and I was wondering what book(s) I could buy that are user friendly and have good explanations. I'm not a math whiz and I'm currently taking analytical geometry, but I want to get ahead before next year. I looked on amazon.com and almost every calc book on there has horrible reviews. So I was wondering what everyone on here thought.

 

 

 

Thanks

[foodchain]

Instead of just books you might also try to use software built for such. As a student you can get a discount on maplesoft software which usually costs around a thousand usd for around over a hundred bucks. I guess its one of the best tools on the markets though the reviews are all kind of the same. I was in somewhat the same situation wanting to get into matrix algebra in which I just used the schools library. It helps to have something though to get you past any points of being stuck, in which that’s why I am suggesting the software angle unless your school has easy tutors.

[Bignose]

I'm going to make a weird suggestion. I think you might like to pick up a little book called Calculus for Cats by Amdahl and Loats. I picked it up a while back, more as a joke for my fiance (whose big into cats), but I thought it was a pretty good book. It really depends on whether you can stomach lots of 'catty' examples or not. But, the information for a good years worth of calculus is in the book.

 

Otherwise, the ... For Dummies books are usually pretty good, and definitely more geared towards self-study than the average textbook. I wouldn't put too much stock in the reviews of the textbooks, because the students who are frustrated/angry/upset with their teachers are going to take the reviews out on the books. A calculus textbook, for a university level class, is going to to be hard. Not only that, but considering how many problems and examples and just the size of the book, there are going to be mistakes in there too. It really cannot be helped. Thirdly, when a book is written for one kind of learner, anyone who isn't the same kind of learner is going to hate that books. In other words, there will always be someone who hates their particular textbook. However, you should be able to check out a few calculus books from a library, you shouldn't need to buy one yourself.

[MrMongoose]

I taught myself some calculus with Jerrold E. Marsden et al. "Vector Calculus".

 

Essentially it hasnt changed for 40 years, so get yourself an old copy off Amazon for £2 rather than spending £50 on the new one

[ajb]

Marsden is well known. His book 1981 book Calculus Unlimited is available on his website as a PDF.

 

Good luck

[DivideByZero]

I taught my self calculus not through books but a 1 hour movie.

the link the the movie is

http://www.guba.com/general/search?query=+Conquer+Calculus&set=5&x=27&y=8

It goes through limits, continuity, derivatives, integrals, and Riemann sums.

[ydoaPs]

I taught my self calculus not through books but a 1 hour movie.

the link the the movie is

http://www.guba.com/general/search?query=+Conquer+Calculus&set=5&x=27&y=8

It goes through limits, continuity, derivatives, integrals, and Riemann sums.

 

This movie is better

[K!!]

I've been teachin' me about one year and it's pretty cool.

 

You have to be patient to understand complex things.