A Tour of the Calculus

By: David Berlinski

Narrated by: Dennis Holland

Were it not for the calculus, mathematicians would have no way to describe the acceleration of a motorcycle or the effect of gravity on thrown balls and distant planets, or to prove that a man could cross a room and eventually touch the opposite wall. Just how calculus makes these things possible and in doing so finds a correspondence between real numbers and the real world is the subject of this dazzling book by a writer of extraordinary clarity and stylistic brio. Even as he initiates us into the mysteries of real numbers, functions, and limits, Berlinski explores the furthest implications of his subject, revealing how the calculus reconciles the precision of numbers with the fluidity of the changing universe.

©1995 David Berlinski (P)2013 Audible Inc.

Becoming Calculus

Excellent narration. As a non mathematician nor graduate, I appreciated the historical follow through of all that would contribute and shape directly or indirectly todays calculus.

A Tour of The Calculus

Excellent book! Full of insight and knowledge! A great way to get introduced to calculus!

Calc explained for the rest of us!

As a college freshman I was advised not to take any college level mathematics because my math entry scores were so bad. I heeded the advice and took my natural science requirements in astronomy and geology. For 40 years I believed I did not understand mathematics until I heard David Berlinski on NPR and thought I might give this book a try.

In spite of my family telling me that I use things like algebra every day when I cook or crochet, it was hard to believe that I could understand complicated concepts of mathematics. Having completed this book I am proud to say I understood most of it, although I could not repeat it, and I'm thrilled to be able to participate in conversations were terms like derivative and functions are peppered through.

I look forward to the next book in the series with great anticipation. Thank you so much for making the calculus come to life for someone who does not consider themselves logical or mathematical but rather verbal and spatial.

Good, but not great for listening

The book was enjoyable, but I listened while also reading a paperback. There are some common mispronunciations that confused me even with the text in front of me. Subscripts were confused with exponents frequently. I really enjoyed the book, but I'm not sure how one would have grasped some of the functions without seeing them.

Absolutely fantastic for a math lover - The best really for listening

As a person naturally interested in mathematics this audio book is excellent. If you want an audio book that helps you to review calculus or to go along with learning calculus from a text you will not do any better than this audio. Of course if you are having a hard time learning calculus, listen to this book over and over. As someone who knows “the Calculus” well since I got my Bachelor of Science in math, I think this is a better tour than I realized could even be done in an audio form.
Calculus may appear boring at first before you understand it, but it becomes so beautiful and so useful to understanding science once you do.
I plan to listen to this over and over just to help me explain calculus better to others.
Also I read so some of the other less glowing reviews and obviously I disagree and only can say that it is true that the author is definitely verbose and is maybe a little bit of overly descriptive in some places, it is still simply an excellent alternative source for anyone studying calculus and also trying to work some problems. Great job I say to David Berlinski. I am in disbelief at some of the negative reviews I read after first posting my review so I added this last paragraph to counter the more critical reviews. It is so much easier to destroy than create.
Maybe people that don't understand it would have to listen more that once but I will listen more times just because it is so well done.

A Great topic, a convoluted way of delivery

The author provided, in twists and turns, a neopolitan Sunday if fascinating history, mathematical fluency, and self indulgent prose.

Frustratingly Bad Writing

Every other sentence, the whole book through, is an imaginary culture reference - or, failing that, an unnecessary anthropomorphism.

These are not clever or humorous allusions to real persons or places or ideas, but vague “discussions in a smoky room, with roasted plums and the scratches of Clementi on impossibly nostalgic vinyl.” A few of these would be tolerable, but on every page, you must wade through them. They serve only to distract from every point, not elucidate it.

Go elsewhere for an interesting introduction to calculus. Come here if you enjoy filling your time with contrivances.

A Tour of Incalculable Verbosity

I am about ten minutes into this, skipping ahead, and giving up for now, quite exasperated. I had hoped for a good overview and cultural description of calculus. This work is so wittily overwritten, so full of long, fanciful descriptions and soaring metaphor it is nearly impossible to remember what on earth we are talking about. The writing is actually good, but seems to have leapt the fence out its genre, striving to be Nabokov with little regard for the listener who just wants a bit of lucid mathematical explanation. I may try again later, but post this warning: you'll have to shovel aside heaps of colorful "prose" to get to anything about calculus.

Way to much superfluous language. Good god man just say what you mean!

Way too many cryptic analogies and poetic language. It’s math, be concise. The book could be condensed by 2/3...

Top Poet among Mathemeticians

First of all: As long as this book says it is narrated by Dennis Holland, don't waste your money or credit.The narrator has NO concept of how to read mathematical formulae, and, thus, the book was confusing at best. It took me a few instances where the narrator spoke of "two-x" to realize that he should be reading it as "x-squared" or "x to the second power". I find it hard to believe that an author would allow a narrator to so completely destroy his text; I further find it hard to believe that anyone educated would fail to understand the difference between 2x and x-squared. Come on, guys. It's an audiobook - the spoken language is all we have here. It needs to be precise, particularly in mathematics. I stopped listening out of frustration after only a couple of hours.

As for the book, the language is quite flowery. Perhaps if I could have persisted in listening to the book further, the language would have grown on me, but, alas, it just seems to be too much window-dressing for the subject. The analogies did not illumine the primary subject, but seemed stretched to give the illusion of literary skill.

I had high hopes for an interesting history of the calculus, but found only frustration.