The Calculus of Friendship: What a Teacher and a Student Learned about Life while Corresponding about Math
- ISBN13: 9780691134932
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
The Calculus of Friendship is the story of an extraordinary connection between a teacher and a student, as chronicled through more than thirty years of letters between them. What makes their relationship unique is that it is based almost entirely on a shared love of calculus. For them, calculus is more than a branch of mathematics; it is a game they love playing together, a constant when all else is in flux. The teacher goes from the prime of his career to retiremen… More >>
This is an absolutely beautiful book about the relationship through letters of a high school math teacher and one of his students who becomes a world class mathematician. It’s about their lives and the mathematics that bound them together. I have read quite a few memoirs and don’t recall any that choked me up like this one did, I want to thank Dr. Strogatz for being so open. Also, the math in the book is very interesting and well explained, if I could give if more than five stars I would.
This is a very interesting book about the relationship between a high school student and teacher that extends long after the student has graduated. Because both student and teacher are math teachers, the correspondence between them frequently revolves aroung math problems that interest them, but it includes much more than that. Not being mathematically inclined whatsoever, I skipped over all the math, and found it a touching story. For those interested in the math too, it will be a double treat.
Very touching book. I admit I did not understand all the math … I enjoyed seeing it, though.:) Bittersweet in a “benjamin button” sort of way.
Full disclosure: Don Joffray, about whom this book was written, was a great friend of my parents so I knew him as much more than a teacher. The great thing about this book is that the author, Steve Strogatz, paints an accurate, empathetic picture of Joff the man & Joff the teacher, and also weaves a compelling story about the enduring friendship between two math geeks (I say this with admiration). I am not a math major so some of the calculations went beyond my meager understanding, but that didn’t matter. Even the math conversations replicated in the book were glimpses into the continuum of a student/teacher realtionship. Very cool!- V. Norris
Having read Strogatz’s “Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos” Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos: With Applications To Physics, Biology, Chemistry, And Engineering (Studies in nonlinearity)
I can only say that this book shines in the same spirit of a man who is able to bring conceptual understanding of math to a level that the read is able to glimpse and understand the workings of the minds who derived and invented the theorems to begin with.
Many reviewers here have already mentioned the heartfelt rendition of the author’s friendship and how it developes over decades, however no less does the complexity and intricacy of the math evolve over the chapters.
What stays the same is the easy with which Strogatz explains the concepts in his letters, even on complex (no pun intended) subject matter.
As such, paraphrasing from the blurb, two things stay constant in the turmoil that is life, friendships, the other, the shared joy of curiosity.