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Math book that deals with real world senarios?

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Darvil

Member
So I'm in Calculus and was just wondering if any of you guys know a book that discuss math in real world senarios.
For example the way the bees construct each cells (minimum surface + maximum volume), or the way tree branches grow (some famous formula which I forgot) or calculus in skin burns (I heard its the 3rd derivative). etc etc

Basically a book that talks about the many things that fits the world mathematically. Nothing hardcore or dealing with a specific subject. I just want a fun and an informed reading.

Thanks!

Darvil
 
Hmm... James Gleick (sp?) had a nice book on chaos theory.
Feynman's QED is a nice read that uses vectors (in reality the equations use complex numbers, but for his examples, vectors are easier) to describe how reflection and refraction arise from quantum electrodynamics, which is just a huge mass of (sometimes partial) differential equations.
In general, most physics and engineering textbooks have all kinds of real-world examples.

Tree branches grow differently for different species. (I think there may be commonalities all the way up to some families, but I don't know all the details.)
 
Calculus Made Easy

This is a GREAT book. It's basically a "this is what you're actually doing with calculus" book. As I recall the author broke calculus down into readable english and used some real world examples to clarify.

I would have loved to have had it when I first took calculus.
 
That is one of the best books ever written. My father taught himself calculus from it aged 13. One of the best explinations of differentiation out there.
 
On the same vein as Calculus Made Easy, there is also a series of books by less prestigious authors, which goes through the discovery of mathematical priniciples in a fantasy world (but it behaves basically the same as our world). The titles are Algebra the Easy Way, Trigonometry the Easy Way, and Calculus the Easy Way. They were clear enough that they taught me the subject matter in middle school. Unfortunately, that meant that I always calculated the position of the vertex of a parabola using the derivative instead of that silly formula you had to memorize (based on geometry or something?).
 
That Calculus book looks interesting.

I might get it actually

thanks.

Any other recommendations? perhaps some that deals with more complex examples and not just a specific topic like chaos theory.

thanks


 
TenaciousT: The point wasn't the actual formula, it's the fact that we were expected to memorize it. When I used the derivative to compute the position of the vertex, I got points taken off. Of course, the teacher is well known to be an evil bastard and a pedophile. (no, I'm serious about that. he gives girls (some are high school freshmen) the "benefit of the doubt" when grading if they wear a skirt to the exam.)
 
You think thats bad.

My pre-cal teacher in my highschool pretty much sold the test to some people in class (those that takes tutoring with him which itself is illegal).

Anyway I saw the test paper.. well talk about pissed off
 
My university had/has a math class designed for education majors, based around precisely that premise.
It's called Contemporary Math, or something like that.

The text was pretty great - 's called For All Practical Purposes, and it's written by a group of authors called COMAP.

5th Ed at Amazon

But if you're just doing it for fun, I'd look for a previous edition, since they'll be cheaper. I've got the third edition.

 
If you want to make the small leap from calculus to differential equations, there's a book called
"Mathematical Modeling in Biology"
A lot of calculus and diff-eq problems in the book. But, all of the problems are based on real-world stuff. An excellent book, imo, to see how the real world can be modeled using mathematics. IIRC, it even discusses bifurcation and some bits of chaos theory.
 
Originally posted by: Darvil
So I'm in Calculus and was just wondering if any of you guys know a book that discuss math in real world senarios.
For example the way the bees construct each cells (minimum surface + maximum volume), or the way tree branches grow (some famous formula which I forgot) or calculus in skin burns (I heard its the 3rd derivative). etc etc

Basically a book that talks about the many things that fits the world mathematically. Nothing hardcore or dealing with a specific subject. I just want a fun and an informed reading.

Thanks!

Darvil
Click to expand...

if you're really interested in this, i suggest a course in partial differential equations which would give you real formulations of nature. this generally requires 4 or 5 more courses of math depending on what lvl of calc you're in now.
 
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