Notes on The Joy of X, Steven Strogatz

Taking the tax off at the beginning of an investment period or at the end results in paying the same cost, as a result of the commutative property.

Logarithms are the inverse of exponents. So if you start with a number, X, and square it and then hit the log function on the calculator you will get the number X you started with. Why? What's happening here? Why does Google use logarithms to get search results? What do logarithms do?

Calculus is the mathematics of change and has two major features: the derivative and the integral. The derivative tells you how fast something is changing (the rate of change) and the integral tells you how fast it is accumulating.
Change is slowest at its beginning and at its end. At these points the derivative (the rate of change) is close to or is 0. As the rate of change increases, the derivative increases, as the rate of change decreases, the

This book describes but does not explain, so when I finish a chapter I feel pretty frustrated because I don't understand the concept he's describing any better, I just see the concept. For example, in the chapter on fractions, he describes how 1/3 is equal to .3, and thus if you add 3 1/3rds you would get .9 and not 1. Which seems wrong to me and it does to him too, but he doesn't explain how or why this is so.

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