Infinite Powers

Quotes

"'Art', said Picasso, 'is a lie that makes us realize truth.' The same could be said for calculus as a model of nature."

Paradigm Shift

A really cute read, Infinite Powers details the history of Calculus. It does well by its readers and avoids going into mathematical formulae (unlike, say A Most Elegant Equation, which embraces alienating readers through equations).

Though the whole of the book isn't that interesting to me, per se, one description around calculus has stuck with me for these years since. That Calculus is the practice of making the infinite, finite. We are actually unable to comprehend the infinity that is so integral to all of reality, however using the clever practice of Calculus, we are able, through discretization, to leverage the infinite in extraordinary ways. 

Has that concept been of use to me? Whose to say; but there is something to be said for the beauty in this simple model of the world that makes the infinite accessible to us. I can wholeheartedly appreciate the "lie that makes us realize truth".