Calculus For Dummies® Paperback – 12 Sept. 2003

I am actually a programmer, simply sharpening up my mathematical skills because writing stock market trading applications it is helpful and this book is absolutely super. If you have no mathematical/algebra background THIS is the book for you, for two reasons.The author actually explains ( in a humorous yet understandable way)1- WHY calculus "IS". i.e. What is the point of calculating derivatives, how they are used in financial world( calculating financial options/derivatives), Science world( calculating rocket trajectories) and so on... I think half the resistance to the complicated looking calculations evaporates when you understand that what you are doing is ACTUALLY used, and isn't just a bunch of random algebraic problems your GCSE maths book used to have.2- How to work your way through. The author literally holds the readers hands,and builds it from ground up. For example , before getting into differential integration, there is a whole chapter on the algebra and quadratic equations basics, all in plain english.The style is very easy to understand, completely opposed to the standard maths books. If you have "some" algebra background it will help (I did) but if you don't the equations are clearly explained.This is a great book to build a foundation for advanced calculus, and will prepare you for the "drier" standard maths books.Highly recommended for beginners and avid calculus haters.

I studied calculus in the 1960s for A Level GCE Pure Maths, Applied Maths and Physics. The subject was badly taught in most schools, as was not uncommon in those faraway days. I suspect that many of the maths teachers may not have understood (other than superficially) the subject they were teaching. Nonetheless, I, like many others students, succeeded at A Levels despite the bad teaching. I decided some months ago to revisit the topic of calculus, just out of interest. How teaching methods (as revealed by the three books I bought from Amazon) have changed, very much for the better! Calculus for Dummies is a great text for anyone beginning to study the subject and wanting to understand its basic concepts and techniques and the practical uses of calculus. Schaum's Outline of Calculus can serve as a companion text. If you don't understand calculus after reading Calculus for Dummies, you might want to try navel-gazing or running a flea circus. Maths is not for you.

Great descriptions, starts from basics and works up. Very suited to my standard. Would be better with more colour and tests.

This was for my daughter when she was at international school when we lived overseas. She found it useful but didn't like the dummies bit in the title. Teenagers!

As always the dummies book give simple (as can be for calculus) easy to follow diagrams and process without any gaps. Really good to refresh your memory, for reference and to learn more about what calculus is.

I'm not sure what Dummies would make of his book since it is far from easy to follow. Despite that Mark Ryan has certainly found a way to describe complex mathematical ideas in an interesting manner but, don't be fooled, this is no Lady Bird book.

I bought this book as extra help while doing my Engineering HNC. It explains the subject very well, gives real world examples and good tips and short cuts. I would recommend it to anyone doing a Calculus course who is a bit slow like me when it comes to maths!

Written in straightforward English, thus making subject reasonably easy to understand, providing you have a fairly good grounding in maths to GCSE standard.

Calculus sucks.

This book is absolutely brilliant. The author assumes a very basic level of maths and succeeds in making calculus a "piece of cake". It shows that, as long as a great teacher is involved - and Mark Ryan is definitely one - anyone can learn anything, and every subject can be made simple. As Einstein used to say, "If you can't explain it clearly, you don't understand it well enough". Well, Ryan does understand it well enough!

Before I bought this book I borrowed a copy from my son-in-law. I was so impressed with it that I ordered a copy for myself. I have been trying to self-teach myself Calculus for awhile, and therefore have bought many Calculus textbooks from used books stores. These books are still valuable to me, but the reason I like "Calculus for Dummies" is that it really explains a lot of concepts in a simple manner. There is the '33333 Limit Mnemnonic' which is a useful memory aid. The author also gives a mnemonic to help with remembering how to differentiate trig functions, using the word "psst" which we use to get someones attention. Basically you just drop the p and use the "sst" to remember sec, sec, tan (secant, secant, tangent). Without going into detail, this is an excellent way to remember how to differentiate trig functions.Working with Calculus means using a LOT of algebra. He has and excellent review of algebra and even pre-algebra. Pre-calculus is thouroughly covered. These reviews helped me a lot, because many of my problems with Calculus stemmed from having forgotten some algebra.I have not read the whole book yet since I am focusing on differentiation, but since the book is so clear on differential Calculus, along with the excellent reviews of prerequisite knowlege, I am confident that the chapters on intergration will be of the same simplicity and readability as the rest of the book.

I choose this rating simply because I was very eager to learn Calculus and this book is the right one for guys like me. I have passed my studies by memorizing all the derivations and formulas without understanding the logic behind them. Even my teachers were unable to explain calculus. I think they too memorized all things and passed to me. But I have found the correct explanations in this book. Though I am unable to understand American slang's and jokes, I understood perfectly the topics. There are lot of students like me who don’t know Calculus. My aim is to teach them. If I can’t, then I’ll recommend this book for them. Thank you, Ryan.

A good rererence to remember the details.