On Twitter I have been teasing some of my followers telling them this post was coming well here it is! Not so long ago we managed to get our hands onto the Manga Guide to Physics, which is a great way for anyone into physics, especially if they like Manga but don’t necessarily have an interest in Physics. And now we have finally got hold of the manga guide to calculus.
I bet you’re now wondering if the Calculus book is as good as the Physics one? Well if you read my last post about Physics you’ll know that laws and theorum’s really aren’t my thing and that I didn’t like maths that didn’t involve what I call real numbers… So opening up this book and seeing lots of funny squiggles and x2 etc is never a good sign… however once again these scary looking formula’s are intermingled with beautiful artwork and a great story using real life examples of applying calculus to go with it. To be honest I actually loved this book, I think the concept of the Manga Guides series is a fantastic way of breaking down some of the barriers to learning and making the content accessible to all!
Key content includes:
- Using differentiation to understand a function’s rate of change
- Apply the fundamental theorem of calculus, and grasp the relationship between a function’s derivative and its integral.
- Integreate and differentiate trigonometric and other complicated functions.
- Use multivariate caluclus and partial differentiation to deal with tricky finctions.
- Use Taylor Expansions to accurately imitate difficult functions with polynomials
Ironically some of the stuff in this book I never got taught in school and never learnt at uni either so it’s actually a book that’s taught me a fair few things about calculus which was fairly unexpected, and if I ever needed to quickly look up any of the calculus forumula’s it’s one of the first books that I’d look up and see if it’s there. Not only is it educational it’s just really well written. I’ve posted a few images of the content so that you too can see what it looks like. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s beautiful and fairly in depth all at the same time.
Competition
So as part of me taking a look at this book I got in touch with No Starch Press and they have offered to give away two copies of The Manga Guide to Calculus. So I thought that it would be a nice idea to get everyone having some Manga fun and drawing their own Manga Geek Characters! The best 2 designs will win a copy of the book each! This is a very subjective competition and I’ll leave the entry date open until the 11th December. Please leave a link to your entry in the comments area below and I’ll let you know on the 11th December who’s won. If I only get 2 entries then I’ll be very disappointed!
BTW here’s a few images I decided to draw over the weekend. A little inspiration to get you started, and I don’t draw much myself. Please be aware that if I find anyone cheating and offering other people’s work as their own they will be disqualified!
Bonus Tweet!
rchiswell @girlygeekdom Have you seen http://www.mangahigh.com – aims to make all maths fun (not just calculus!). [plus it's written in PHP 
]
[...] know-how that she has, and along the way learns about calculus, Taylor expansions and more. Geek girl review here. Follows from the very successful ‘Manga Guide to Physics’, where a young woman [...]
[...] Last month we launched the Manga Competition for people to win one of two copies of the Manga Guide to Calculus courtesy of No Starch Press who [...]
Phew! Finally!
Hope I’m not too late… epic scanner fail batman!!
“Science….. It works!”
http://twitpic.com/tdmc0
GingerNic Sneak peek at my entry for @girlygeekdom’s manga comp: http://twitpic.com/suur0 “Science…it works!” … Your move @tompl
Here is a link o an entry by my 12 yr old daughter. She wants to be a Manga artist live in Japan – She already sings several songs in perfect Japanese which learnt from YouTube and can translate what she is singing.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2493318/Abi%20Manga.PDF
apropos magnahigh, I tried it an found it neither maths nor fun. but maybe that’s just me…
Hi Sarah!
As promised on Twitter (@just_francesca)
I had a go with some manga characters:
1. This is actually my sister (I made this card last year)
http://dreamsaddict.deviantart.com/art/My-manga-sister-145428359
2. London’s rain
http://dreamsaddict.deviantart.com/art/London-s-rain-145428565
3. Cuppa
http://dreamsaddict.deviantart.com/art/Cuppa-145428479
4. The snowman
http://dreamsaddict.deviantart.com/art/Snowman-145428764
Hope you’ll like them!
Cheers
Francesca