The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, and Survive a Zombie Apocalypse

Kiss My Math meets A Tour of the Calculus

Jennifer Ouellette never took math in college, mostly because she-like most people-assumed that she wouldn't need it in real life. But then the English-major-turned-award-winning-science-writer had a change of heart and decided to revisit the equations and formulas that had haunted her for years. The Calculus Diaries is the fun and fascinating account of her year spent confronting her math phobia head on. With wit and verve, Ouellette shows how she learned to apply calculus to everything from gas mileage to dieting, from the rides at Disneyland to shooting craps in Vegas-proving that even the mathematically challenged can learn the fundamentals of the universal language.

Jennifer Ouellette is a science journalist and the author of several books, including The Calculus Diaries, The Physics of the Buffyverse, and Black Bodies and Quantum Cats. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Discover, Salon, and Nature, among other publications. She writes a science and culture blog called Cocktail Party Physics on the Scientific American website. Ouellette served from 2008 to 2010 as the director of the Science and Entertainment Exchange, a program of the National Academy of Sciences that aims to foster creative collaborations between scientists and entertainment-industry professionals. She has also been the journalist in residence at the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara and an instructor at the Santa Fe Science Writing Workshop. Ouellette holds a black belt in jujitsu and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Caltech physicist Sean Carroll.