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Change Is the Only Constant: The Wisdom of Calculus in a Madcap WorldBook

by Ben Orlin

Who uses, recommends or left Change Is the Only Constant: The Wisdom of Calculus in a Madcap World, in their own words: each a verbatim quote with a link to where it was said.

1 person

Grant Sanderson
Mathematician and creator of the 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel and the Manim animation library.
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I feel like Ben Orlin solved what was previously an unsolved problem with this book: Teach calculus in a way that is as enjoyable to those unfamiliar with the topic as it is to experts who use it every day. I, for one, was laughing from page 1.

His Book recommendations page, introduced as "a small list of textbooks I've thoroughly enjoyed at some time in the past, with the added condition that each one stands out in some way from the surrounding body of math texts". The cover images link to Amazon through amzn.to short links that resolve to URLs carrying the affiliate tag 3b1b04-20. Listed in the Popular books section, aimed at a general audience rather than students. The commentary opens by linking his Math With Bad Drawings blog.

2020-06-01·3blue1brown.com ↗

Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.

The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.

A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.

What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:

Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.