I haven't seen the updated version, but the one on gutenberg is gold. The old language is comical on its own: he cracks jokes and it is funny because of the jokes //and// because of the old language.
This book is so good, that gutenbeg volunteers took the time to typeset all the math in latex so the PDFs are very good for reading or printing out.
excerpt:
PROLOGUE.
Considering how many fools can calculate,
it is surprising that it should be thought
either a difficult or a tedious task for any
other fool to learn how to master the same tricks.
Some calculus-tricks are quite easy. Some are
enormously difficult. The fools who write the
textbooks of advanced mathematics—and they are
mostly clever fools—seldom take the trouble to
show you how easy the easy calculations are.
On the contrary, they seem to desire to impress
you with their tremendous cleverness by going about
it in the most difficult way.
Being myself a remarkably stupid fellow, I have had
to unteach myself the difficulties, and now beg to
present to my fellow fools the parts that are not hard.
Master these thoroughly, and the rest will follow.
What one fool can do, another can.
Comments
I haven't seen the updated version, but the one on gutenberg is gold. The old language is comical on its own: he cracks jokes and it is funny because of the jokes //and// because of the old language.
This book is so good, that gutenbeg volunteers took the time to typeset all the math in latex so the PDFs are very good for reading or printing out.
excerpt: