The BIG Problem with Modern Calc Books

The big difference between old calc books and new calc books...
#Shorts #calculus

We compare Stewart's Calculus and George Thomas's calculus.

◉Textbooks I Like◉

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[WrathofMath]

I should clarify I like both of these books; all I'm doing in the video is pointing out the difference because I think it's amusing. I provide no commentary on it. The title of the video is a pun, nothing more.
EDIT: Reworded for less salt

[Mathematica]

I have both books. I love them both. Even the 140+ pages it takes to arrive at the derivative in Stewart is full of a whole lot of nice little problems and explanations. I think Stewart’s treatment of the epsilon delta concept of the limit is clearer than Thomas. They’re both good.

[mujtabaalam]

There's also the difference in inteded audience: Thomas is intended for well-qualified students taking the course in a small-ish class led by the professor where students can ask questions and have them be answered, Stewart is written for students who shouldn't have passed precalculus and are in a giant hall of 300 people where they can't even hear the professor and thus need to teach themselves.


Anyone who can learn from Thomas can also learn from Stewart, but not everyone who can learn from Stewart can learn from Thomas

[ycombine]

If your text book doesnt have shrek in it, Im not interested

[TheZerovirus]

Pictures, graphics, and specially exercises take a large amount of pages

[griffinbur]

I know that you take no stand here, but as an amateur math teacher (ie, full time tutor), I greatly prefer the early modern approach. Give students the basic tools early and let them see the beautiful applications. They are easily motivated to fill in the details thereafter. Also, the lack of dumb infographics and five different kinds of nagging boxes, “DID YOU KNOW”s, cautions, etc is so refreshing in older texts. Give me clear, problem-oriented text and some beautiful, clean B&W pen drawings.

[kmbbmj]

Don't worry, the next edition will reorganize everything so you can't use the old one in class. One class I took, the professor had a 3rd edition, I had the 7th, and others had every edition in between. Nothing was arranged the same in any of those editions.

[alessandrorossi]

about 20 years ago someone told me that math education changed in the late 50s to early 60s during the space race the study of physics became seen as very important and therefore general math education became geared towards calculus to the exclusion of other math topics. I used to have a math-for-non-math-people textbook from 1954 (unfortunately I leant it out and it was never returned) but it was interesting because it had a brief intro to calc, graph theory, abstract algebra, and a few other topics like that that most non-math majors would never see nowadays.

[davidshi]

Fun Fact: Stewart used his book profits to build a "Calculus Mansion". I'm not joking!

[leesnotbritish]

Now I get why my parents always say to check the textbook, there’s was a lot more concise, mine takes some digging

[ianburt]

My primary issue with the Stewart book is that my university was requiring the 8th edition for the new Calc 1 courses when I was a freshman, but everyone taking Calc 2 and above were using the 6th edition, and this was because the publishing company was pushing this. I got caught in the middle of it because I was accidentally scheduled to the calc 1 class at first (mixup by the registrar), and was later placed in calc 2 after I'd already purchased the book in the newer edition, while my classmates were using the older edition. Made for a frustrating class when I couldn't work with a classmate using their book for the homework problems that were different.

[seanspartan]

I find that many of my older math textbooks may be smaller but they're much more densely written and delve deeper into the subject matter. Although non-standard notation can be a bit hard to read at times 😂

[mwm]

One book assumes you have more knowledge about calculus than the other. It also has set assignments. Doesn’t mean it’s any worse at all.

[thecanmanification]

But like, you know page numbers isn’t a good measure of this, right?

[mr.pavone]

I saw a jack-o'-lantern with a derivative carved on it. I asked the home owner about it and she said her daughter did it. I asked the daughter why she chose that and she said, "derivatives are scary."

[matthewsalmon]

It's wild the number of courses for which i bought the whole textbook and used fewer than a quarter of the chapters.

[Traivss]

The mechanics of derivatives are are very simple and can really be taught in like 20 minutes, but the background and the proof for them are really interesting and worth exploring for someone who is genuinely interested in math.

[petertu]

I didn’t use the 2nd edition of Thomas, but it was an early edition before it became Thomas & Finney. My copy is signed by Professor Thomas. He was already an emeritus professor (at MIT) when I was an undergrad but he occasionally gave a guest lecture.

[jakob]

In my calculus course the derivatives were only introduced after logic, limits, series, proofs, the analytical definition of sin, cos and e. The definition of e was used as an introduction to derivatives.

[darksalmon]

What's great is having such a variety of approaches to teaching things. A huge number of people explaining the same complex topics using different words.

Back in the day you got one text explantation of derivatives or integrals. Too many students needlessly confused for too long.

In the case of the short text book, some people love that. Right to the point. But some people need textbooks covering the same subject with a more conversational tone... With stories and more graphics.

For tech books the "dummies" books are a good example. Also the "big black book" line of tech books. So easy to follow.