One of my favorite non-fiction books is Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty, by Morris Kline, another one of my heroes.
It starts with this amazing quote: “There are tragedies caused by war, famine, and pestilence. But there are also intellectual tragedies caused by limitations of the human mind. This book relates the calamities that have befallen man’s most effective and unparalleled accomplishment, his most persistent and profound effort to utilize human reason—mathematics.”
The history of mathematics may not be everyone’s favorite subject, but if you are even slightly intrigued, I highly recommend this book! You don’t need to know any math to be able to appreciate his compelling story and premise.
One of his conclusions is a theme that resonates deeply with me: the mathematics developed to describe our physical world and to advance the physical sciences is not only useful; it’s a guiding light for the future of mathematics.
I can’t imagine a better way to learn calculus than by working through another one of his books, Calculus: An Intuitive and Physical Approach. (To be completely transparent, I’ve only worked through some of the excellent material in this book.)
While I doubt that I’ll ever get through all of the books he wrote, I’ve read enough to deeply respect his insights and contributions to our world.
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