Kelley - Idiots Guides: Calculus I

No one likes a know-it-all. Most of us realize theres no such thinghow could there be? The world is far too complicated for someone to understand everything there is to know. So when you come across a know-it-all, you smile to yourself as they ramble on because you know better.

You understand that the quest for knowledge is a never-ending one, and youre okay with that. You have no desire to know everything, just the next thing. You know what you dont know, youre confident enough to admit it, and youre motivated to do something about it.

At Idiots Guides, we, too, know what we dont know, and we make it our business to find out. We find really smart people who are experts in their fields and then we roll up our sleeves and get to work, asking lots of questions and thinking long and hard about how best to pass along their knowledge to you in the easiest, most-accessible way possible.

After all, thats our promiseto make whatever you want to learn As Easy as It Gets. That means giving you a well-organized design that seamlessly and effortlessly guides you from page to page, topic to topic. It means controlling the pace youre asked to absorb new informationnot too much at once but just what you need to know right now. It means giving you a clear progression from easy to more difficult. It means giving you more instructional steps wherever necessary to really explain the details. And it means giving you fewer words and more illustrations wherever its better to show rather than tell.

So here you are, at the start of something new. The next chapter in your quest. It can be an intimidating place to be, but youve been here before and so have we. Clear your mind and turn the page. By the end of this book, you wont be a know-it-all, but your world will be a little less complicated than it was before. And well be sure your journey is as easy as it gets.

Mike Sanders
Publisher, Idiots Guides

Publisher: Mike Sanders

Associate Publisher: Billy Fields

Acquisitions Editor: Jan Lynn

Development Editor: Mike Thomas

Cover Designer: Lindsay Dobbs

Book Designer: William Thomas

Compositors: Ayanna Lacey, Brian Massey

Proofreader: Virginia Vasquez

Indexer: Heather McNeill

PRODUCTION, LONDON

Digital Producer: Alex Valizadeh

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DIGITAL OPERATIONS, DELHI

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Operations Assistant: Tauhid Nasir

First American Edition, 2016
Published in the United States by DK Publishing
6081 E. 82nd Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46250

Copyright 2016 Dorling Kindersley Limited
A Penguin Random House Company
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001-292194-JULY2016

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Published in the United States by Dorling Kindersley Limited.

Formerly published as The Complete Idiots Guide to Calculus, Second Edition.

IDIOTS GUIDES and Design are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC

eISBN: 9781465454126

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2015956727

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Contents

Foreword

Heres a new onea calculus book that doesnt take itself too seriously! I can honestly say that in all my years as a math major, Ive never come across a book like this.

My name is Danica McKellar. I am primarily an actress and filmmaker (probably most recognized by my role as Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years), but a while back I took a 4-year sidetrack and majored in Mathematics at UCLA. During that time I also co-authored the proof of a new math theorem and became a published mathematician. What can I say? I love math!

But lets face it. Youre not buying this book because you love math. And thats okay. Frankly, most people dont love math as much as I do or at all, for that matter. This book is not for the dedicated math majors who want every last technical aspect of each concept explained to them in precise detail.

This book is for every Bio major who has to pass two semesters of calculus to satisfy the universitys requirements. Or for every student who has avoided mathematical formulas like the plague, but is suddenly presented with a whole textbook full of them. I knew a student who switched majors from chemistry to English, in order to avoid calculus!

Mr. Kelley provides explanations that give you the broad strokes of calculus conceptsand then he follows up with specific tools (and tricks!) to solve some of the everyday problems that you will encounter in your calculus classes.

You can breathe a sigh of reliefthe content of this book will not demand of you what your other calculus textbooks do. I found the explanations in this book to be, by and large, friendly and casual. The definitions dont concern themselves with high-end accuracy, but will bring home the essence of what the heck your textbook was trying to describe with their 50-cent math words. In fact, dont think of this as a textbook at all. What you will find here is a conversation on paper that will hold your hand, make jokes(!), and introduce you to the major topics youll be required to learn for your current calculus class. The friendly tone of this book is a welcome break from the clinical nature of every other math book Ive ever read!

And oh, Mr. Kelleys colorful metaphorscomparing piecewise functions to Frankensteins body partswell, youll understand when you get there.