CALCULUS + PEPPERONI / FUN = MATH SUCCESS

Do you want to do well on your calculus exam? Are you looking for a quick refresher course? Or would you just like to get a taste of what calculus is all about? If so, you’ve selected the right book. Calculus and Pizza is a creative, surprisingly delicious overview of the essential rules and formulas of calculus, with tons of problems for the learner with a healthy appetite.

Setting up residence in a pizza parlor, Clifford Pickover focuses on procedures for solving problems, offering short, easy-to-digest chapters that allow you to quickly get the essence of a technique or question. From exponentials and logarithms to derivatives and multiple integrals, the book utilizes pepperoni, meatballs, and more to make complex topics fun to learn–emphasizing basic, practical principles to help you calculate the speed of tossed pizza dough or the rising cost of eggplant parmigiana. Plus, you’ll see how simple math–and a meal–can solve especially curious and even mind-shattering problems.

Authoritatively and humorously written, Calculus and Pizza provides a lively–and more tasteful–approach to calculus.

"Pickover has published nearly a book a year in which he stretches the limits of computers, art, and thought."

–Los Angeles Times

"A perpetual idea machine, Clifford Pickover is one of the most creative, original thinkers in the world today."

–Journal of Recreational Mathematics

"Pickover has published nearly a book a year in which he stretches the limits of computers, art, and thought." Los Angeles Times

"A perpetual idea machine, Clifford Pickover is one of the most creative, original thinkers in the world today." Journal of Recreational Mathematics

Includes bibliographical references (p. 205) and index.

Delicious fast food for the mind that makes learning calculus as easy as eating a slice.

Calculus and Pizza is a surprisingly tasty overview of calculus from master chef Cliff Pickover. A fun feast for the mind that goes down easy, this is an excellent primer for novices who'd like to quickly master the essential rules, formulas, and toppings in calculus. It's also a great review for readers who took calculus in school and who'd like to reacquaint themselves with the subject. A perfect complement to more comprehensive texts and guides, such as Wiley's popular Calculus Self-Teaching Guide, Calculus and Pizza follows the adventures of Luigi, a pizza maker with a mathematical bent. It gets readers quickly up and running with basic calculus concepts and formulas and then cuts to the chase with all the problem-solving techniques needed to make a pizza pie, including everything from calculating the speed of a hunk of tossed pizza dough to deriving the expansion rate of a slice of melting mozzarella.

Clifford Pickover is a research staff member at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center and a prolific author of books and articles on science, art, and mathematics. His other books include Black Holes: A Traveler's Guide and Keys to Infinity.