Calculus the Easy Way

Book excerpt: This ingenious, user-friendly introduction to calculus recounts adventures that take place in the mythical land of Carmorra. As the story's narrator meets Carmorra's citizens, they confront a series of practical problems, and their method of working out solutions employs calculus. As readers follow their adventures, they are introduced to calculating derivatives; finding maximum and minimum points with derivatives; determining derivatives of trigonometric functions; discovering and using integrals; working with logarithms, exponential functions, vectors, and Taylor series; using differential equations; and much more. This introduction to calculus presents exercises at the end of each chapter and gives their answers at the back of the book. Step-by-step worksheets with answers are included in the chapters. Computers are used for numerical integration and other tasks. The book also includes graphs, charts, and whimsical line illustrations. Barron's Easy Way books introduce a variety of academic and practical subjects to students and general readers in clear, understandable language. Ideal as self-teaching manuals for readers interested in learning a new career-related skill, these books have also found widespread classroom use as supplementary texts and brush-up test-preparation guides. Subject heads and key phrases that need to be learned are set in a second color.