Abstract
STUDENTS of ordinary endowment form the habit of observing things before words. The author of this work has therefore wisely begun with the notions of velocity and gradient of a curve before introducing dy/dx as the instrument for measuring them. The purely mathematical aspect of a limit is not omitted, but it is subordinated; the need for it precedes its introduction. For many purposes, and at any rate for initial study, this course is quite satisfactory; and the author will find most teachers in agreement with him in thinking it is also wise even for those who are to proceed to the more severe and formal study of the calculus. While he doubtless recognises that physicists, engineers, and chemists would benefit by finally surmounting the difficulties of the notion of a limit, he does not make it his business in this book to give the first importance to the difficulties of analysis presented by his subject.
The Calculus for Beginners.
By J. W. Mercer. Pp. xiv + 440. (Cambridge: University Press.) Price 6s.
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The Calculus for Beginners . Nature 85, 136 (1910). https://doi.org/10.1038/085136a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/085136a0