Blake C. StaceyOct 3, 2023

Taking a break from the ... everything of everything ... to try my hand at an updated edition of *Calculus Made Easy*. Fortunately, there was a LaTeX transcription at @gutenberg_org, which I grabbed a while ago. (Their website has changed, so I'm no longer sure how to get the auxiliary files.) I've made one pass through for outdated terminology and notation:

https://www.sunclipse.org/wp-content/downloads/2023/10/revising.pdf

Next will be updating the examples that use pounds-shillings-pence currency.

Show threadBlake C. StaceyOct 13, 2023
Working some more on my *Calculus Made Easy* updated edition. I think I'll just cut the "bang went saxpence" joke as too much of a 1914-ism.
Show threadBlake C. StaceyOct 13, 2023

The one thing in Thompson's presentation that I didn't particularly like is how he introduces derivatives of trig functions. It presumes that the reader has a lot of trig identities in their back pocket, and it makes a simplification that is hard to justify without going into limits, a topic that Thompson doesn't teach. I've tried my hand at a replacement that appeals to the way he *does* teach.

https://www.sunclipse.org/wp-content/downloads/2023/10/revising.pdf

Show threadBlake C. StaceyOct 20, 2023

... Did a little more work on this:

https://www.sunclipse.org/wp-content/downloads/2023/10/revising.pdf

Show threadBlake C. StaceyOct 21, 2023
... The *Calculus Made Easy* example about a coal-powered steamship is probably another I should just replace with something entirely new.
Show threadBlake C. StaceyOct 21, 2023

... Here is my de-archaized version of *Calculus Made Easy*, with the shillings and the obsolete names for things we now know to be polonium isotopes all fixed up:

https://www.sunclipse.org/wp-content/downloads/2023/10/revising.pdf

And here is how the LaTeX stands at the moment:

https://www.sunclipse.org/wp-content/downloads/2023/10/calculus-made-easy.tgz

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@bstacey reading through this is making me want to build a curriculum around this and similar books (*The Little Schemer* and its sequels come to mind as CS materials without unnecessary complication) for folks who are ready to learn what college only taught them by rote
Oct 21, 2023 at 11:56pmWeb