♾️ Why to Read Infinite Powers by Steven Strogatz

If you’re someone who likes learning for fun, I highly recommend Steven Strogatz’s Infinite Powers.¹

I finished this book last night at a bar in downtown Waterloo with blaring music at 11 PM. How does one focus on a book with all of those distractions? From experience, noise cancelling headphones or earplugs only go so far. The only way I maintain focus is if the material in the book demands, nay deserves, my attention.

The book covers the essence of calculus from the:

1. Problems with rationalizing infinity
2. History and deriving (pun intended) calculus
3. Theoretical challenges of calculus
4. Practical applications of calculus

Strogatz offers a comprehensive view of a gnarly subject. It isn’t like high school class, where everyone is collectively confused as to why we take the derivative of a polynomial. It makes you feel smart, where many textbooks/teachers make you feel dumb.

The book aims not to replace your introductory calculus class, but rather, aims to make learning math seem recreational. What was Katherine Johnson doing on that chalkboard in Hidden Figures? Why do we care about deriving the derivative of a sin wave? What inspired Newton’s migraines from the 3 body problem?

While exploring practical calculus, you’ll find that Strogatz answers a leading question:

If Pythagoras stated “all things are number”², why is everything calculus?

He convinces you that every motion, curve, wave, and fabric of spacetime is fundamentally cutting everything into infinitesimal pieces and reassembling them.

Infinite Powers is a book for everyone: not just the STEM folks. It’s artistic in invigorating the mind to explore about, and more importantly, reevaluate… everything.

If that isn’t enticing, I don’t know what is.