People who bought this also bought...
-
The Joy of x
- A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity
- By: Steven Strogatz
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Many people take math in high school and promptly forget much of it. But math plays a part in all of our lives all of the time, whether we know it or not. In The Joy of x, Steven Strogatz expands on his hit New York Times series to explain the big ideas of math gently and clearly, with wit, and insight.
-
Complexity
- The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos
- By: M. Mitchel Waldrop
- Narrated by: Mikael Naramore
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a rarified world of scientific research, a revolution has been brewing. Its activists are not anarchists, but rather Nobel Laureates in physics and economics and pony-tailed graduates, mathematicians, and computer scientists from all over the world. They have formed an iconoclastic think-tank and their radical idea is to create a new science: complexity. They want to know how a primordial soup of simple molecules managed to turn itself into the first living cell--and what the origin of life some four billion years ago can tell us about the process of technological innovation today.
-
-
A simply told story of complexity
- By Tim on 21-07-20
-
A Most Elegant Equation
- Euler’s Formula and the Beauty of Mathematics
- By: David Stipp
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bertrand Russell wrote that mathematics can exalt "as surely as poetry". This is especially true of one equation: ei(pi) + 1 = 0, the brainchild of Leonhard Euler, the Mozart of mathematics. More than two centuries after Euler's death, it is still regarded as a conceptual diamond of unsurpassed beauty. Called Euler's identity, or God's equation, it includes just five numbers but represents an astonishing revelation of hidden connections.
-
-
Very good.
- By Dale Linney on 12-04-20
-
The Ten Equations That Rule the World
- And How You Can Use Them Too
- By: David Sumpter
- Narrated by: Sam Woolf
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This book is all about the equations that make our world go round. Ten of them, in fact. They are integral to everything from investment banking to betting companies and social media giants. And they can help you to increase your chance of success, guard against financial loss, live more healthily and see through scaremongering. They were known only by mathematicians - until now.
-
The Idea of the Brain
- A History
- By: Matthew Cobb
- Narrated by: Joe Jameson
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the story of our quest to understand the most mysterious object in the universe. Today we tend to picture the brain as a computer. Earlier scientists thought about it in their own technological terms: as a telephone switchboard, or a clock, or all manner of fantastic mechanical or hydraulic devices. Could the right metaphor unlock the brain's deepest secrets once and for all? Galloping through centuries of wild speculation and ingenious, sometimes macabre anatomical investigations, scientist and historian Matthew Cobb reveals how we came to our present state of knowledge.
-
-
Stunning overview and history of neuroscience
- By Coolade on 10-04-20
-
The Second Kind of Impossible
- The Extraordinary Quest for a New Form of Matter
- By: Paul J. Steinhardt
- Narrated by: Peter Larkin
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When leading Princeton physicist Paul Steinhardt began working in the 1980s, scientists thought they knew all the conceivable forms of matter. The Second Kind of Impossible is the story of Steinhardt’s 35-year-long quest to challenge conventional wisdom. It begins with a curious geometric pattern that inspires two theoretical physicists to propose a radically new type of matter - one that raises the possibility of new materials with never-before-seen properties but that violates laws set in stone for centuries.
-
-
Informative book
- By ANEES on 22-11-19
-
The Joy of x
- A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity
- By: Steven Strogatz
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Many people take math in high school and promptly forget much of it. But math plays a part in all of our lives all of the time, whether we know it or not. In The Joy of x, Steven Strogatz expands on his hit New York Times series to explain the big ideas of math gently and clearly, with wit, and insight.
-
Complexity
- The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos
- By: M. Mitchel Waldrop
- Narrated by: Mikael Naramore
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a rarified world of scientific research, a revolution has been brewing. Its activists are not anarchists, but rather Nobel Laureates in physics and economics and pony-tailed graduates, mathematicians, and computer scientists from all over the world. They have formed an iconoclastic think-tank and their radical idea is to create a new science: complexity. They want to know how a primordial soup of simple molecules managed to turn itself into the first living cell--and what the origin of life some four billion years ago can tell us about the process of technological innovation today.
-
-
A simply told story of complexity
- By Tim on 21-07-20
-
A Most Elegant Equation
- Euler’s Formula and the Beauty of Mathematics
- By: David Stipp
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bertrand Russell wrote that mathematics can exalt "as surely as poetry". This is especially true of one equation: ei(pi) + 1 = 0, the brainchild of Leonhard Euler, the Mozart of mathematics. More than two centuries after Euler's death, it is still regarded as a conceptual diamond of unsurpassed beauty. Called Euler's identity, or God's equation, it includes just five numbers but represents an astonishing revelation of hidden connections.
-
-
Very good.
- By Dale Linney on 12-04-20
-
The Ten Equations That Rule the World
- And How You Can Use Them Too
- By: David Sumpter
- Narrated by: Sam Woolf
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This book is all about the equations that make our world go round. Ten of them, in fact. They are integral to everything from investment banking to betting companies and social media giants. And they can help you to increase your chance of success, guard against financial loss, live more healthily and see through scaremongering. They were known only by mathematicians - until now.
-
The Idea of the Brain
- A History
- By: Matthew Cobb
- Narrated by: Joe Jameson
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the story of our quest to understand the most mysterious object in the universe. Today we tend to picture the brain as a computer. Earlier scientists thought about it in their own technological terms: as a telephone switchboard, or a clock, or all manner of fantastic mechanical or hydraulic devices. Could the right metaphor unlock the brain's deepest secrets once and for all? Galloping through centuries of wild speculation and ingenious, sometimes macabre anatomical investigations, scientist and historian Matthew Cobb reveals how we came to our present state of knowledge.
-
-
Stunning overview and history of neuroscience
- By Coolade on 10-04-20
-
The Second Kind of Impossible
- The Extraordinary Quest for a New Form of Matter
- By: Paul J. Steinhardt
- Narrated by: Peter Larkin
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When leading Princeton physicist Paul Steinhardt began working in the 1980s, scientists thought they knew all the conceivable forms of matter. The Second Kind of Impossible is the story of Steinhardt’s 35-year-long quest to challenge conventional wisdom. It begins with a curious geometric pattern that inspires two theoretical physicists to propose a radically new type of matter - one that raises the possibility of new materials with never-before-seen properties but that violates laws set in stone for centuries.
-
-
Informative book
- By ANEES on 22-11-19
-
Astronomical
- From Quarks to Quasars, the Science of Space at Its Strangest
- By: Tim James
- Narrated by: Tim James
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Space is the biggest, oldest, hottest, coldest, strangest thing a human can study. It's no surprise then, that the weirdest facts in science (not to mention the weirdest scientists themselves) are found in astrophysics and cosmology. If you're looking for instructions on how to set up your grandad's telescope this book probably isn't for you. In Astronomical, Tim James takes us on a tour of the known (and unknown) Universe, focusing on the most-mind boggling stuff we've come across, as well as unpacking the latest theories about what's really going on out there.
-
-
witty and entertaining
- By Sue Thatcher on 21-09-20
-
The Universe Speaks in Numbers
- How Modern Maths Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets
- By: Graham Farmelo
- Narrated by: Hugh Kermode
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the great mysteries of science is that its fundamental laws are written in the language of mathematics. Graham Farmelo's thrilling new book shows how modern maths has helped physicists to rethink gravity, space, and time. The Universe Speaks in Numbers takes us on an adventure from the Enlightenment to the present with a vibrant cast of characters, illuminating the most exciting and controversial developments in contemporary thought.
-
-
Quite a dry history of mathematics in physics.
- By Heisenberg on 06-05-19
-
Sync
- How Order Emerges from Chaos in the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life
- By: Steven Strogatz
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At once elegant and riveting, Sync tells the story of the dawn of a new science. Steven Strogatz, a leading mathematician in the fields of chaos and complexity theory, explains how enormous systems can synchronize themselves, from the electrons in a superconductor to the pacemaker cells in our hearts. He shows that although these phenomena might seem unrelated on the surface, at a deeper level there is a connection, forged by the unifying power of mathematics.
-
Why String Theory?
- By: Joseph Conlon
- Narrated by: Robbie Stevens
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why String Theory? provides the answer, offering a highly listenable and accessible panorama of the who, what and why of this large aspect of modern theoretical physics. The author, a theoretical physics professor at the University of Oxford and a leading string theorist, explains what string theory is and where it originated. He describes how string theory fits into physics and why so many physicists and mathematicians find it appealing when working on topics from M-theory to monsters and from cosmology to superconductors.
-
Fundamental
- How Quantum and Particle Physics Explain Absolutely Everything (Except Gravity)
- By: Tim James
- Narrated by: Tim James
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fundamental is a comprehensive beginner's guide to quantum mechanics, explaining not only the weirdness of the subject but the experiments that proved it to be true. Using a humorous and light-hearted approach, Fundamental tells the story of how the most brilliant minds in science grappled with seemingly impossible ideas and gave us everything from microchips to particle accelerators.
-
-
Succinct, full of physics, utterly brilliant
- By D B. on 22-08-20
-
Quantum Space
- Loop Quantum Gravity and the Search for the Structure of Space, Time, and the Universe
- By: Jim Baggott
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Today we are blessed with two extraordinarily successful theories of physics. The first is Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, which describes the large-scale behavior of matter in a curved spacetime. The second is quantum mechanics. This theory describes the properties and behavior of matter and radiation at their smallest scales.
-
-
Fascinating story.
- By Amazon Customer on 04-01-20
-
What Is Life?
- Understand Biology in Five Steps
- By: Paul Nurse
- Narrated by: Paul Nurse
- Length: 5 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sir Paul Nurse is one of Britain's greatest living scientists. Here he invites listeners on a journey of discovery of biology's five great building blocks including The Cell, The Gene, Evolution by Natural Selection, Life as Chemistry, Life as Information and then an inspiring piece on how we can change the world with this knowledge. Accessible and easy to listen to, Paul's engaging, personal tone will make listeners light up with excitement as they learn how all living beings are connected.
-
Something Deeply Hidden
- Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime
- By: Sean Carroll
- Narrated by: Sean Carroll
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist and one of this world’s most celebrated writers on science, rewrites the history of 20th-century physics. Already hailed as a masterpiece, Something Deeply Hidden shows for the first time that facing up to the essential puzzle of quantum mechanics utterly transforms how we think about space and time. His reconciling of quantum mechanics with Einstein’s theory of relativity changes, well, everything. Most physicists haven’t even recognized the uncomfortable truth: Physics has been in crisis since 1927.
-
-
Brilliant but not for beginners
- By Anonymous User on 25-12-19
-
How Evolution Explains Everything About Life
- From Darwin's Brilliant Idea to Today's Epic Theory
- By: New Scientist
- Narrated by: Mark Elstob
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did we get here? All cultures have a creation story, but a little over 150 years ago, Charles Darwin introduced a revolutionary new one. We, and all living things, exist because of the action of evolution on the first simple life form and its descendants. In How Evolution Explains Everything About Life, leading biologists and New Scientist take you on a journey of a lifetime, exploring the questions of whether life is inevitable or a one-off fluke and how it got kick-started.
-
Lost in Math
- How Beauty Leads Physics Astray
- By: Sabine Hossenfelder
- Narrated by: Laura Jennings
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Whether pondering black holes or predicting discoveries at CERN, physicists believe the best theories are beautiful, natural, and elegant, and this standard separates popular theories from disposable ones. This is why, Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades. The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: Observation has been unable to confirm mindboggling theories, like supersymmetry or grand unification, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria.
-
-
Exciting, Challenging and Controversial.
- By Jim Vaughan on 02-01-19
-
The Science of Information: From Language to Black Holes
- By: Benjamin Schumacher, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Benjamin Schumacher
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Science of Information: From Language to Black Holes covers the exciting concepts, history, and applications of information theory in 24 challenging and eye-opening half-hour lectures taught by Professor Benjamin Schumacher of Kenyon College. A prominent physicist and award-winning educator at one of the nation’s top liberal arts colleges, Professor Schumacher is also a pioneer in the field of quantum information, which is the latest exciting development in this dynamic scientific field.
-
-
FASCINATING
- By Santiago on 07-05-20
-
It All Adds Up: The Story of People and Mathematics
- By: Mickael Launay
- Narrated by: Oliver J. Hembrough
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this international best seller, Mickaël Launay mixes history and anecdotes from around the world to reveal how mathematics became pivotal to the story of humankind. It is a journey into numbers, with Launay as a guide. In museums, monuments or train stations, he uses the objects around us to explain what art can reveal about geometry, how Babylonian scholars developed one of the first complex mathematical languages and how ‘Arabic’ numbers were adopted from India.
-
-
Marvellous on all levels
- By Steven Orpwood on 11-01-19
Summary
Without calculus, we wouldn't have cell phones, TV, GPS, or ultrasound. We wouldn't have unraveled DNA or discovered Neptune or figured out how to put 5,000 songs in your pocket.
Though many of us were scared away from this essential, engrossing subject in high school and college, Steven Strogatz's brilliantly creative, down-to-earth history shows that calculus is not about complexity; it's about simplicity. It harnesses an unreal number - infinity - to tackle real world problems, breaking them down into easier ones and then reassembling the answers into solutions that feel miraculous.
Infinite Powers recounts how calculus tantalized and thrilled its inventors, starting with its first glimmers in ancient Greece and bringing us right up to the discovery of gravitational waves. Strogatz reveals how this form of math rose to the challenges of each age: how to determine the area of a circle with only sand and a stick; how to explain why Mars goes "backwards" sometimes; how to turn the tide in the fight against AIDS.
As Strogatz proves, calculus is truly the language of the universe. By unveiling the principles of that language, Infinite Powers makes us marvel at the world anew.
More from the same
What listeners say about Infinite Powers
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Amazon Customer
- 05-09-19
Elegant, clear, cutting edge.
If you're curious, but mathematically hopeless, this is splendid. I found the opening overview particularly illuminating, but throughout it joins history, to biography, to physics, to math in a clear but not condescending manner.
20 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- A Reader in Maine
- 21-02-20
Not written to be read aloud
Don’t get me wrong—this is a great book and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I highly recommend it. But in many parts, the performer has to read aloud some complicated equations that are tough to follow if you are, say, listening while driving. As a statistician, I was familiar with 80% of the concepts discussed and have heard of the rest, and I struggled at times. I recommend buying the book to read, so one can slow down when needed, or listen to it with a pencil and paper handy. That said, this book gave me many new insights and explanations that will inform my teaching going forward.
15 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- David
- 29-05-20
GREAT BOOK! would be nice to have a PDF
If you enjoy math and Steven Strogatz... you're probably a nerd like me and have already read this or similar books many times, and you know its good. 😁 If you are just interested in math and want to hear it explained in an entertaining and informative, this is a great book to read. it would benefit from a PDF for some illustrations, but even without that it is easy to follow.
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall

- M. McCreary
- 10-02-20
Read the book
This is a great discussion of the development and use of calculus, but if you're not comfortable with the topic, the audiobook isn't the best way to read it. The narrator does a great job, but with so many equations in the text, it's just easier to read the hard copy.
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous
- 05-09-19
Great for those learning calculus
I'm in differential equations right now this is a good overview of the theories of calculus and covers aspects missed in lectures
12 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Julian G.
- 30-01-20
Great overbiew
I'm not a math person by trade although I do enjoy mathematics. This book is a great way to get a wide breadth idea of the history of calculus. I suggest this book to anyone who kind of wants to know about the math without getting too into the Weeds about how to do it. Beautifully written and excellently narrated.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Tyler
- 29-12-19
Beautiful
As a young newly inspired fellow, I’ve been surprisingly driven to read and listen to such books as Strogatz’s here. It gorgeously weaves often difficult to imagine notions of mathematics into a web of relevance. I am registered to take calculus in the next semester, and could not have imagined a better primer. I’m hooked. I am craving to learn more, and this book has teased the desire for advancement to an incredible degree. I’ve listed this book as one I must return to after actually learning to DO the calculus he dances around. But until then, I have only dreamy things to say about the book. Narration is wonderful. As with any scientific / mathematic audio, there are tedious portions where it becomes difficult to follow given the nature of embedding equations and proofs into paragraphs. But this is, to me, apparent and obvious. I like to consider the portions of technical speak as a challenge to myself whether I can follow. I’ll repeat it several times until I understand or decide I’m not quite studied enough to understand more deeply than I do. Mathematics is a language of translating “reality” into symbols and back again, judging their synergy along the way. To expect a book on mathematics NOT to contain technical paragraphs, is a mistake. I loved them. If you are reading reviews looking for fuel to motivate your own decision, do it. Especially if you are willing to be curious. If you would like to learn. And if you want to explore the universe, mathematics is nestled amongst the best available tools to do so. Dive in. Enjoy.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 08-03-20
history
explains calculus but not heavy on math Lots of illustrations. good for teaching anyone at any age
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Timothy S.
- 24-01-20
Infinitely Awesome! So much fun.
Missing insight on eastern math is meaningless compared to the tale of modern infinities. Fun listen on headphones but some pencil and paper moments when a peek at the math is required.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- P. Sandwall
- 22-05-20
beware the reader
listening now and will finish because I'm a completionist but... this reader hurts my head, he feels like someone scratching a chalkboard. I'm actually not going to finish this, it's that painful. maybe a personal issue but damn.
1 person found this helpful