Whats the point of calculating definite integrals since you cant possibly do them all?
What makes doing the specific integrals in this book of value arent the specific answers well obtain, but rather the methods well use in obtaining those answers; methods you can use for evaluating the integrals you will encounter in the future.
This book, now in its second edition, is written in a light-hearted manner for students who have completed the first year of college or high school AP calculus and have just a bit of exposure to the concept of a differential equation. Every result is fully derived. If you are fascinated by definite integrals, then this is a book for you. New material in the second edition includes 25 new challenge problems and solutions, 25 new worked examples, simplified derivations, and additional historical discussion.
From the Contents: Preface.- Introduction.- Easy Integrals.- Feynmans
Favorite Trick.- Gamma and Beta Function Integrals.- Using Power Series to
Evaluate Integrals.- Seven Not-So-Easy Integrals.- Using (-1) to Evaluate
Integrals.- Contour Integration.- Epilogue.- Solutions to the Challenge
Problems.
Paul J. Nahin is professor emeritus of electrical engineering at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of 21 books on mathematics, physics, and the history of science, published by Springer, and the university presses of Princeton and Johns Hopkins. He received the 2017 Chandler Davis Prize for Excellence in Expository Writing in Mathematics (for his paper The Mysterious Mr. Graham, The Mathematical Intelligencer, Spring 2016). He gave the invited 2011 Sampson Lectures in Mathematics at Bates College, Lewiston, Maine.
