I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

  • Phssthpok

    Great post, and I am likely being pedantic, but I think it’s important to distinguish between *describing* and *explaining*.

  • DevinC

    I signed up for this course, rather than another introductory calculus course offered through Coursera, because Ghrist’s approach seems radically different than the industry standard.  His Funny Little Calculus Textbook starts off with functions, but immediately jumps to Taylor series, assuming the reader knows how to take the derivatives of simple polynomials.  In other words, it seems more like a course about understanding calculus than doing calculus.    

  • s2redux

    Trying to figure out why George Takei agreed to read this script while wearing pants that are 2 sizes too small.

  • SamSam

    Yay, I already signed up for this course a few months ago!

    Even as a programmer I’ve always felt my basic calc was a bit rusty, and while I could probably just take a two-session refresher course and jump straight to Calc 2, this course looked fun. Now… hopefully I can stick with the schedule better than I could with “The History of the World Since 1300.” Who would have guessed that 700 years of history would require lots of reading and lectures? (The course was very good, and I made it through four weeks on-schedule, but in the end I didn’t have nearly enough time.)

  • Jeff Erickson

    Needs more Dante.

  • lafave

    I have all the prereqs; I just wish I remembered half of them. This class looks fun. Oh well.

  • sburns54

    Holy moley! It’s still as densely unapproachable to me as I remember it being when I flunked it in high school! Even with cartoons, which always grab my attention! I was lost by 1:03 seconds in! Thank goodness there are other people that can do this stuff and put it to practical use. I’ll just stay in the kitchen, if anyone needs a sandwich.

    • SamSam

      There’s also a more basic Calculus One course: https://www.coursera.org/course/calc1

      The only prereqs are highschool algebra and trig.

  • http://www.facebook.com/teleny Alissa Mower Clough

    I’m getting somewhat aroused. In which sense, I really don’t know.

  • penguinchris

    I did a computer science course on Coursera in the spring that I thought was very good. I then tried another and didn’t like the way it was done and gave up on it. I definitely need a calculus refresher and this looks good so I’m sold on this one, I hope it turns out well.