Calculus Quotes

Donald Saari uses a combination of stories and questions to challenge students to think critically about calculus. "When I finish this process," he explained, "I want the students to feel like they have invented calculus and that only some accident of birth kept them from beating Newton to the punch." In essence, he provokes them into inventing ways to find the area under the curve, breaking the process into the smallest concepts (not steps) and raising the questions that will Socratically pull them through the most difficult moments. Unlike so many in his discipline, he does not simply perform calculus in front of the students; rather, he raises the questions that will help them reason through the process, to see the nature of the questions and to think about how to answer them. "I want my students to construct their own understanding," he explains, "so they can tell a story about how to solve the problem. ~ Ken Bain

We liked to be known as the clever girls. When we decorated our hands with henna for holidays and weddings, we drew calculus and chemical formulae instead of flowers and butterflies. ~ Malala Yousafzai

As Brother Francis readily admitted, his mastery of pre-Deluge English was far from masterful yet. The way nouns could sometimes modify other nouns in that tongue had always been one of his weak points. In Latin, as in most simple dialects of the region, a construction like servus puer meant about the same thing as puer servus, and even in English slave boy meant boy slave. But there the similarity ended. He had finally learned that house cat did not mean cat house, and that a dative of purpose or possession, as in mihi amicus, was somehow conveyed by dog food or sentry box even without inflection. But what of a triple appositive like fallout survival shelter? Brother Francis shook his head. The Warning on Inner Hatch mentioned food, water, and air; and yet surely these were not necessities for the fiends of Hell. At times, the novice found pre-Deluge English more perplexing than either Intermediate Angelology or Saint Leslie's theological calculus. ~ Walter M. Miller Jr.

Willingly Andras followed him into the curved halls of calculus, where the problem of Madame Morgenstern could not exist because it could not be described by an equation. ~ Julie Orringer

And how many Daeva children died when your people invaded? Far more than the Geziri children who will be lost tonight."
Muntadhir stared at him in shock. "Do you hear yourself? What sort of man plots that calculus?" Hate filled his gray eyes. "God, I hope it's her in the end. I hope Nahri puts a goddamned knife through whatever passes for your heart. ~ S.A. Chakraborty

I have no fault to find with those who teach geometry. That science is the only one which has not produced sects; it is founded on analysis and on synthesis and on the calculus; it does not occupy itself with the probable truth; moreover it has the same method in every country. ~ Frederick The Great

The analytical geometry of Descartes and the calculus of Newton and Leibniz have expanded into the marvelous mathematical method-more daring than anything that the history of philosophy records-of Lobachevsky and Riemann, Gauss and Sylvester. Indeed, mathematics, the indispensable tool of the sciences, defying the senses to follow its splendid flights, is demonstrating today, as it never has been demonstrated before, the supremacy of the pure reason. ~ Nicholas Murray Butler

As you will find in multivariable calculus, there is often a number of solutions for any given problem. ~ John Forbes Nash

Usually, girls weren't encouraged to go to college and major in math and science. My high school calculus teacher, Ms. Paz Jensen, made math appealing and motivated me to continue studying it in college. ~ Ellen Ochoa

The calculus of probabilities, when confined within just limits, ought to interest, in an equal degree, the mathematician, the experimentalist, and the statesman. ~ Francois Arago

Science is the Differential Calculus of the mind. Art the Integral Calculus; they may be beautiful when apart, but are greatest only when combined. ~ Ronald Ross

He flashed his wicked grin and lowered his voice. "Mrs. Frost always runs late. I could kiss you now and give the crowd what they're looking for."
That would be an awesome way to start class. I licked my lips and whispered, "You are going to get me in so much trouble."
"Damn straight." Noah caressed my cheek before heading to his seat in the back.
I settled in my seat and spent the entire hour trying to keep my mind focused on calculus and not on kissing Noah Hutchins. ~ Katie McGarry

Printing mistakes adds value because of the probability calculus, which makes their intrusion into something problematic and almost impossible, even when everything's conceived, precisely, to avoid the intrusion of human error. ~ Romain Gary

But no, I had a test in Calculus. I flunked the test, badly. It was as though my brain didn't want to solve for the rate of acceleration ... ~ Robyn Schneider

Milly is not, in fact, ugly, but she might as well be. She has a pretty face, which is the same thing as ugly when a woman is fat. In the complex calculus between men and women, Milly understands that fat is always ugly and that ugly and skinny makes a woman eminently more desirable than fat and any combination such as beautiful, charming, intelligent, or kind. Milly is all those things. She knows it doesn't matter. ~ Roxane Gay

You're just pushing your food around, aren't you? You've barely taken two bites. I thought you loved Lou's Cornish hens."
"I do. I'm sorry. All I can think about is that English project due this week." I look over at Ryder with a faux scowl. "We're already way behind--you've always got some excuse. We should probably work on it tonight."
"Probably so," Ryder says with an exasperated-sounding sigh.
"That's the third project the two of you have been paired up on," Mama says, shaking her head. "I hope you two can behave well enough to get your work done properly. No more arguing like the last time."
We'd pretended to fight over a calculus project. Yes, a calculus project. Is there really any such thing?
"We're trying really hard to behave," I say, shooting Ryder a sidelong glance. "Right?"
His cheeks pinken deliciously at the innuendo. I love it when Ryder blushes. Totally adorable.
"Right," he mumbles, his gaze fixed on his lap.
Laura Grace gives us both a pointed look. "You two better learn to get along, you hear? You're going to be spending a lot of time together for the next four years."
Four years. Just the two of us--away from our meddling mamas. I have to bite my lip to force back the smile that's threatening to give us away.
"She's right," Mama says, nodding. "The only way I'm allowing Jemma to go to NYU is if she promises not to go off campus without Ryder to escort her."
Escort me? What is it, the 1950s or somethin ~ Kristi Cook

All the calculus, quantum mechanics and languages in the world are worthless pieces of information, if they are not brought to the service of the society. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Math is a weave of many threads: the formal and the intuitive, the simple and the profound, the momentary and the eternal. Love the thread you love. But never mistake it for the tapestry. ~ Ben Orlin

Part of my job is to help other kids find books, because not everyone has a keenly organized mind. Some kids could wander the library for hours and still have no idea how to find anything. For them, the Dewey Decimal System might as well be advanced calculus. ~ Neal Shusterman

You know how to use magic?" I asked. "I prefer calculus. ~ Jim Butcher

In the calculus of feelings, you never really know how one person's absence will affect you more than another's. ~ Gayle Forman

Accordingly, we find Euler and D'Alembert devoting their talent and their patience to the establishment of the laws of rotation of the solid bodies. Lagrange has incorporated his own analysis of the problem with his general treatment of mechanics, and since his time M. Poinsot has brought the subject under the power of a more searching analysis than that of the calculus, in which ideas take the place of symbols, and intelligent propositions supersede equations. ~ James Clerk Maxwell

That is what is marvelous about school, she realized: when you are in school, your talents are without number, and your promise is boundless. You ace a math test: you will one day work for NASA. The choir director asks you to sing a solo at the holiday concert: you are the next Mariah Carey. You score a goal, you win a poetry contest, you act in a play. And you are everything at once: actor, astronomer, gymnast, star. But at a certain point, you begin to feel your talents dropping away, like feathers from a molting bird. Cello lessons conflict with soccer practice. There aren't enough spots on the debating team. Calculus remains elusive. Until the day you realize that you cannot think of a single thing you are wonderful at. ~ Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

We are finite creatures, bound to this place and this time, and helpless before an endless expanse. It is within the calculus that for the first time the infinite is charmed into compliance, its luxuriance subordinated to the harsh concept of a limit. ~ David Berlinski

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many. Therefore in a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests. ~ John Rawls

No matter how significant or life-changing your greatest hit or miss might be, neither even begins to define who you are. Each of us is a product of all our experiences and all our interactions with other people. To cite calculus, we are the area under the curve. ~ Colin Powell

One thing had always confused Quentin about the magic he read about in books: it never seemed especially hard to do. There were lots of furrowed brows and thick books and long white beards and whatnot, but when it came right down to it, you memorized the incantation - or you just read it off the page, if that was too much trouble - you collected the herbs, waved the wand, rubbed the lamp, mixed the potion, said the words - and just like that the forces of the beyond did your bidding. It was like making salad dressing or driving stick or assembling Ikea furniture - just another skill you could learn. It took some time and effort, but compared to doing calculus, say, or playing the oboe - well, there really was no comparison. Any idiot could do magic. ~ Lev Grossman

As a student, frustrated by the limitations of conventional mathematics, he invented an entirely new form, the calculus, but then told no-one about it for twenty-seven years5. ~ Bill Bryson

If one looks at the different problems of the integral calculus which arise naturally when one wishes to go deep into the different parts of physics, it is impossible not to be struck by the analogies existing. ~ Henri Poincare

As to the need of improvement there can be no question whilst the reign of Euclid continues. My own idea of a useful course is to begin with arithmetic, and then not Euclid but algebra. Next, not Euclid, but practical geometry, solid as well as plane; not demonstration, but to make acquaintance. Then not Euclid, but elementary vectors, conjoined with algebra, and applied to geometry. Addition first; then the scalar product. Elementary calculus should go on simultaneously, and come into vector algebraic geometry after a bit. Euclid might be an extra course for learned men, like Homer ... ~ Oliver Heaviside

Hard to be a physics major at Rice University if you have flunked calculus. ~ Elizabeth Moon

But here, Ms. Pelletier, is the thing. Without infinitesimals, the calculus as we know and love it simply wouldn't exist. It is these nearly-zero, sort-of-zero, sometimes-zero quantities that allow us to understand the world. Something which seems to be nearly nothing turns out to be crucial to everything. So though I, or for you that matter, or any of us, may be, as a collection of atoms, practically indistinguishable from zero, this does not necessarily mean we are insignificant. Indeed, it may be that we are actually crucially important. ~ Brendan Halpin

And then he was there, staring at me from behind the screen door. I'd like to say he no longer affected me, that seeing him was a disappointment. But it wasn't true. I felt as strongly about him as I had on that first day I'd seen him in calculus class. ~ Candace Bushnell

There are certainly lots of jobs in computer coding, but coding doesn't really require advanced mathematics. And engineering jobs, they vary widely in the amount of demand that we actually need. So, you know, the number of people for whom the job description includes Newton's calculus is not perhaps that high. ~ Anya Kamenetz

Alongside the liberating relief of the veteran who tells us his story, I now felt in the writing a complex, intense, and new pleasure, similar to that I felt as a student when penetrating the solemn order of differentials calculus. It was exalting to search and find, or create, the right word, that is, commensurate, concise, and strong; to dredge up events from my memory and describe them with the greatest rigor and the least clutter. ~ Primo Levi

When I was in school, my favorite subject was math. I took algebra and calculus. At an early age I grasped it and understood it quickly. I just enjoyed breaking the codes and solving problems. ~ Chris Bosh

We tend to think of emotion and logic as two distinct, mutually exclusive domains. Not Steve. From the beginning, when making decisions, passion was a key part of his calculus. ~ Ed Catmull

ahh, calculus. the mathematics of change ~ Nicola Yoon

Granted, we never gave you a choice, but wouldn't you have agreed to transfer those dreams to us, knowing now what you could not know then? This sort of subjunctive calculus, nobody teaches in school. Artificial sleep, for example, "sleep for all" - who can say if we will achieve it? I keep roto-dialing strangers, begging for their surplus unconsciousness. ~ Karen Russell

Statistics are human beings with the tears wiped away. ~ Paul Brodeur

Leadership calculus: always choose to rise over run. ~ Ryan Lilly

I did not take a calculus course until my second year of college. ~ Robert Coleman Richardson

Andrew Hacker argues that algebra and trigonometry and calculus are subjects that almost nobody used after they graduate, and so why should we continue to compel students to try to pass them? ~ Anya Kamenetz

What music is to the heart, mathematics is to the mind. ~ Amit Kalantri

Many organizations help businesses to stay on top of what's changing or likely to change. It's important for executives and managers who focus on a company's health coverage to stay up-to-speed on what's happening, and it's important for those in the C-suite to understand the changes to factor these new variables into their strategic planning calculus. ~ John E. McDonough

Love can reach the same level of talent, and even genius, as the discovery of differential calculus. ~ Lev Vygotsky

The overall structure of the calculus is simple. The subject is defined by a fantastic leading idea, one basic axiom, a calm and profound intellectual invention, a deep property, two crucial definitions, one ancillary definition, one major theorem, and the fundamental theorem of the calculus.
The fantastic leading idea: the real world may be understood in terms of the real numbers.
The basic axiom: brings the real numbers into existence.
The calm and profound invention: the mathematical function.
The deep property: continuity.
The crucial definitions: instantaneous speed and the area underneath a curve.
The ancillary definition: a limit
The major theorem: the mean value theorem.
The fundamental theorem of the calculus is the fundamental theorem of the calculus.
These are the massive load-bearing walls and buttresses of the subject. ~ David Berlinski

If the calculus is much like a cathedral, its construction the work of centuries, it remained until the nineteenth century a cathedral suspiciously suspended in midair, the thing simply hanging there, with no one absolutely convinced that one day the gorgeous and elaborate structure would not come crashing down and fracture in a thousand pieces. ~ David Berlinski

If it's cynical, risky politics that brings a lighted match and a can of gas near the Democratic coalition, it should be named as such, and its consequences understood, and it should become part of the complex calculus we're all building to help us understand these campaigns. ~ Ezra Klein

This room was worse than she thought.
Dark. Remote. Practically in the trees. Practically Enchanted.
A calculus test would feel intimate in here. ~ Rainbow Rowell

He calculated the number of bricks in the wall, first in twos and then in tens and finally in sixteens. The numbers formed up and marched past his brain in terrified obedience. Division and multiplication were discovered. Algebra was invented and provided an interesting diversion for a minute or two. And then he felt the fog of numbers drift away, and looked up and saw the sparkling, distant mountains of calculus. ~ Terry Pratchett

Science is turning into a monastery for the Order of Capitulant Friars. Logical calculus is supposed to supersede man as moralist. We submit to the blackmail of the 'superior knowledge' that has the temerity to assert that nuclear war can be, by derivation, a good thing, because this follows from simple arithmetic. ~ Stanislaw Lem

Last night I went and saw Good Will Hunting, which takes place not exactly where I used to live, in Boston, but pretty darn close, so I've been all flush with nostalgia for it. I was in Boston from summer of '89 until spring of '92...

...I think it's the ultimate nerd fantasy movie. It's a bit of a fairy tale, but I enjoyed it a lot. Minnie Driver is really to fall sideways for. And there's all sorts of cool stuff. It's actually a movie that's got calculus in it. It takes place in Boston. ~ David Foster Wallace

I was very into math and calculus, and just always was very - really interested in that. But any sort of numbers. ~ David Plouffe

I abandoned the assigned problems in standard calculus textbooks and followed my curiosity. Wherever I happened to be
a Vegas casino, Disneyland, surfing in Hawaii, or sweating on the elliptical in Boesel's Green Microgym
I asked myself, Where is the calculus in this experience? ~ Jennifer Ouellette

Cam was so much clearer, easier to figure out. Like he was algebra and Daniel was calculus. ~ Lauren Kate

The semanticists maintained that everything depends on how you interpret the words "potato," "is" and "moving." Since the key here is the operational copula "is," one must examine "is" rigorously. Whereupon they set to work on an Encyclopedia of Cosmic Semasiology, devoting the first four volumes to a discussion of the operational referents of "is." The neopositivists maintained that it is not clusters of potatoes one directly perceives, but clusters of sensory impressions. Then, employing symbolic logic, they created terms for "cluster of impressions" and "cluster of potatoes," devised a special calculus of propositions all in algebraic signs and after using up several seas of ink reached the mathematically precise and absolutely undeniable conclusion that 0=0. ~ Stanislaw Lem

In the calculus of good deeds you have the most to gain. ~ Naguib Mahfouz

I'd like to take some calculus, too. I have absolutely no ability in that direction and not much interest, either, but there's something going on in mathematics that I don't understand, and I'd like to find out what it is. ~ Andy Rooney

Divorced people try to maintain at least a shred of respect for their former spouses. They say, He or she is the parent of my children and I will do it for that reason. This statement brings me down. I always feel defeated after hearing it. As if that's the only reason there is to err on the side of slack toward this person you once loved, slept next to, cried over, made love to, bought presents for, married. I also think it's a lot of heavy webbing to drape over the kids, as if you're offering your tolerance as some hard-earned prize: See how I sacrifices for my children by continuing to endure that freak show that is the other person?
I always hope there is more to it. This is a person, after all, whom we pluck out of a crowd of possibilities. Magic attends that choice. Or if that word belongs irrevocably to the World of Disney, then use the word mystery. At any rate, it's a remarkable kind of calculus that makes you look at a field of men or women and quickly zero in on the one person who turns you on most. ~ Wendy Plump

If a nonnegative quantity was so small that it is smaller than any given one, then it certainly could not be anything but zero. To those who ask what the infinitely small quantity in mathematics is, we answer that it is actually zero. Hence there are not so many mysteries hidden in this concept as they are usually believed to be. These supposed mysteries have rendered the calculus of the infinitely small quite suspect to many people. Those doubts that remain we shall thoroughly remove in the following pages, where we shall explain this calculus. ~ Leonhard Euler

Her days felt like being handed from person to person like a baton, her calculus teacher passing her to her Spanish teacher to her chemistry teacher to her friends and back home to her parents. Then one day, her mother's hand was gone and she'd fallen, clattering to the floor. ~ Brit Bennett

There's a popular concept of 'intelligence' as book smarts, like calculus or chess, as opposed to, say, social skills. So people say that 'it takes more than intelligence to succeed in human society.' But social skills reside in the brain, not the kidneys. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky

A month's intelligent instruction in the theory of numbes ought to be twice as instructive, twice as useful, and at least 10 times as entertaining as the same amount of 'calculus for engineers'. ~ G.H. Hardy

Love knows not of death nor calculus above the simple sum of heart plus heart. ~ Sylvia Plath

The change began with John Stuart Mill and the Utopians . When Mill pointed out that economics had no ultimate solution to the problem of distribution , that society might do with the fruits of its toil as it saw fit, he introduced into the mechanical calculus of the market a conflicting calculus of moral judgment. ~ Robert Heilbroner

That's calculus in a nutshell. It takes a problem that can't be done with regular math because things are constantly changing - the changing quantities show up on a graph as curves - it zooms in on the curve till it becomes straight, and then it finishes off the problem with regular math. ~ Mark Ryan

We need to raise the level of our game in terms of explaining the planetary warming by infrared absorption of CO2 etc. The missing area of understanding seems to be the actual physical mechanism. Lets target an explanation at an audience that has taken 1 year each of undergraduate physics and chemistry, plus calculus. Once we have something that is convincing at this level, we can work on how to communicate this to the interested public (i.e. those that hang out in the climate blogosphere). Willis Eschenbach's help is needed in translating this for the WUWT crowd. ~ Judith Curry

Newton had invented the calculus, which was expressed in the language of "differential equations," which describe how objects smoothly undergo infinitesimal changes in space and time. The motion of ocean waves, fluids, gases, and cannon balls could all be expressed in the language of differential equations. Maxwell set out with a clear goal, to express the revolutionary findings of Faraday and his force fields through precise differential equations.

Maxwell began with Faraday's discovery that electric fields could turn into magnetic fields and vice versa. He took Faraday's depictions of force fields and rewrote them in the precise language of differential equations, producing one of the most important series of equations in modern science. They are a series of eight fierce-looking differential equations. Every physicist and engineer in the world has to sweat over them when mastering electromagnetism in graduate school.

Next, Maxwell asked himself the fateful question: if magnetic fields can turn into electric fields and vice versa, what happens if they are constantly turning into each other in a never-ending pattern? Maxwell found that these electric-magnetic fields would create a wave, much like an ocean wave. To his astonishment, he calculated the speed of these waves and found it to be the speed of light! In 1864, upon discovering this fact, he wrote prophetically: "This velocity is so nearly that of light that it seems we have strong reason to conclu ~ Michio Kaku

"I see it, but I don't believe it." ~ Richard Dedekind

If everything about life could be as simple as calculus, my world would be just perfect." -Mia ~ S.T. Bende

I don't have any sort of calculus in choosing film roles. ~ Jon Hamm

It is the invaluable merit of the great Basle mathematician Leonard Euler, to have freed the analytical calculus from all geometric bounds, and thus to have established analysis as an independent science, which from his time on has maintained an unchallenged leadership in the field of mathematics. ~ Thomas Reid

Economics operates legitimately and usefully within a 'given' framework which lies altogether outside the economic calculus. We might say that economics does not stand on its own feet, or that it is a 'derived' body of thought - derived from meta- economics. If the economist fails to study meta-economics, or, even worse. If he remains unaware of the fact that there are boundaries to the applicability of the economic calculus, he is likely to fall into a similar kind of error to that of certain medieval theologians who tried to settle questions of physics by means of biblical quotations. Every science is beneficial within its proper limits but becomes evil and destructive as soon as it transgresses them. The ~ Ernst F. Schumacher

In all likelihood, Sonja had more academic journal subscriptions than friends. She could explain advanced calculus to her fifth-form algebra teacher but couldn't tell a joke to a boy at lunch. ~ Anthony Marra

That is the great mystery of human evolution: how to account for calculus and Mozart. ~ E. O. Wilson

I was home-schooled 'cause I wanted to be an actor. I would spend all day watching movies, trying to get through calculus. ~ Brie Larson

AP Calculus wasn't much better. Nick had completely forgotten to do the homework. Three questions - three stupid questions! - but he'd never gotten around to opening his assignment book last night, so he hadn't bothered to do them.

He mentally added another zero to his imaginary grade sheet.

At least this was only homework.

By the time he sat at a table at lunch, he was ready for some cutlery, just so he could stab something.

Lunch was pizza. Figured. Not even so much as a plastic fork. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

Those interested in celestial navigation are advised to first obtain a rudimentary knowledge of integral calculus, phlebotomy, astral physics and related subjects. The use of liquor is strictly forbidden on interplanetary flights. ~ Henry Miller

Of course, the methods for human population control are enormously controversial. One contraceptive measure seems to be humane and acceptable: If you teach calculus to teenage girls, they go on to have far fewer babies. Calculus is the contraceptive of the future. It doesn't work for boys. ~ Kenneth S. Deffeyes

We can't exempt ourselves from the same moral calculus that we are willing to apply to others. ~ Michael Eric Dyson

From my point of view, any outstanding work of art is a fantasy insofar as it reflects the unique world of a unique individual. Art is not just simple arithmetic, it's a delicate calculus. Keep in mind the passion of the scientist and the precision of the artist. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Weight Watchers points is a beautiful system for someone who is absentminded about food. They aren't the greatest for someone who has had eating disorders all her life. The world became numbers to me and I was doing more math than I ever had before. I got off Weight Watchers and went back to just counting calories. The world became different kinds of numbers, the old, familiar kind. This is how I eat now. The world is still numbers, but it is algebra, not calculus. ~ Melissa Broder

The ultimate goal of a meteorologist is to set up differential equations of the movements of the air and to obtain, as their integral, the general atmospheric circulation, and as particular integrals the cyclones, anticyclones, tornados, and thunderstorms. ~ Andrija Maurovic

The question is: will I get used to a menu with kilojoules instead of calories? I mean, I don't think anyone even knows how many kilojoules are in a calorie. I had to break out a whiteboard this morning and do calculus just to figure out how many calories were in a glass of water Down Under. ~ Elle Lothlorien

The next morning the first thought that came to my mind was "Calculus of love". When love tends to infinity, thinko tends to zero. ~ Ram Vignesh

Why did they all think alike? Typical bourgeois brainwashed homogeneity? How else could this unvarying calculus abouth the worth of one's own kind measured against the lives of others have come about? ~ Neel Mukherjee

Gout produces calculus in the kidney ... the patient has frequently to entertain the painful speculation as to whether gout or stone be the worst disease. Sometimes the stone, on passing, kills the patient, without waiting for the gout. ~ Thomas Sydenham

At the Stourbridge Fair in 1663, at age twenty, he purchased a book on astrology, "out of a curiosity to see what there was in it." He read it until he came to an illustration which he could not understand, because he was ignorant of trigonometry. So he purchased a book on trigonometry but soon found himself unable to follow the geometrical arguments. So he found a copy of Euclid's Elements of Geometry, and began to read. Two years later he invented the differential calculus. ~ Carl Sagan

Imagine a life-form whose brainpower is to ours as ours is to a chimpanzee's. To such a species, our highest mental achievements would be trivial. Their toddlers, instead of learning their ABCs on Sesame Street, would learn multivariable calculus on Boolean Boulevard. Our most complex theorems, our deepest philosophies, the cherished works of our most creative artists, would be projects their schoolkids bring home for Mom and Dad to display on the refrigerator door. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

The whole apparatus of the calculus takes on an entirely different form when developed for the complex numbers. ~ Keith Devlin

During those snowy New England winters, besides learning to rise at five to study calculus and trudge two miles through the drifts for breakfast down the road, he had suppressed some tremendous element in himself that took form in a prudish virginity. While his life was impeccable on the surface, he felt he was behind glass: moving through the world in a separate compartment, touching no one else. ~ Andrew Holleran

His poor-man's Ionesconian exchanges with Jude suddenly dissolved when he needed Jude to do his calculus homework, at which point Ionesco abruptly transformed into Mussolini, ~ Hanya Yanagihara

With an absurd oversimplification, the 'invention' of the calculus is sometimes ascribed to two men, Newton and Leibniz. In reality, the calculus is the product of a long evolution that was neither initiated nor terminated by Newton and Leibniz, but in which both played a decisive part. ~ Richard Courant

The calculus of utility aims at supplying the ordinary wants of man at the least cost of labour. ~ William Stanley Jevons

They thought they were employing an economy-saving doctrine of situational leniency, but they somehow failed to understand that by coming up with a calculus to determine who was big enough and important enough to command jurisprudential mercy, they were simultaneously making a calculation about who was small enough and unimportant enough not to qualify. ~ Matt Taibbi

Magic was ugly - -a hard bargain with the universe, a calculus of pain. ~ Laini Taylor

Ambition without knowledge is like a boat on dry land -movie - Karate kid"What is the calculus of innovation?" "The calculus of innovation is really quite simple: knowledge drives innovation, innovation drives productivity, productivity drives our economic growth." ~ William R. Brody

Calculus, the electrical battery, the telephone, the steam engine, the radio - all these groundbreaking innovations were hit upon by multiple inventors working in parallel with no knowledge of one another. ~ Steven Johnson

I studied calculus for the first time, which to me was an amazingly empowering experience which I could really see how you could understand all sorts of things, and I decided that chemistry and biology just had too much memory for me to be interested. Physics was very easy. ~ Marshall Nicholas Rosenbluth