The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, and Survive a Zombie Apocalypse »

Jennifer Ouellette is a card-carrying member of the National Association of Science Writers. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Discover, Salon, and Nature. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Cal Tech cosmologist Sean Carroll.

Kiss My Math meets A Tour of the Calculus

Jennifer Ouellette never took math in college, mostly because she-like most people-assumed that she wouldn't need it in real life. But then the English-major-turned-award-winning-science-writer had a change of heart and decided to revisit the equations and formulas that had haunted her for years. The Calculus Diaries is the fun and fascinating account of her year spent confronting her math phobia head on. With wit and verve, Ouellette shows how she learned to apply calculus to everything from gas mileage to dieting, from the rides at Disneyland to shooting craps in Vegas-proving that even the mathematically challenged can learn the fundamentals of the universal language.

Nature

In The Calculus Diaries, science writer Jennifer Ouellette makes maths palatable using a mix of humour, anecdote and enticing facts. . .Using everyday examples, such as petrol mileage and fairground rides, Ouellette makes even complex ideas such as calculus and probability appealing.

Acknowledgments xiii

Prologue: I Could Be Mathier 1

1 To Infinity and Beyond 11

2 Drive Me Crazy 40

3 Casino Royale 65

4 The Devil's Playground 93

5 Show Me the Money 119

6 A Pox upon It 140

7 Body Heat 171

8 The Catenary Tales 202

9 Surfin' Safari 225

Epilogue: The Mimetics of Math 249

Appendix 1 Doing the Math 263

Appendix 2 Calculus of the Living Dead 293

Bibliography 299

Index 309