Author of two physics books and Director of the National Academy of Sciences Science and Entertainment Exchange, Ouellette seems eminently qualified to pen The Calculus Diaries, although what really motivated her to write the book was her previous reluctance to tackle mathematics so directly. “I never took calculus, always was kind of afraid of it and didn’t really know what it was. And I thought, you know, this isn’t OK for someone who writes about physics. I really should at least know conceptually what it is,” Ouellette says. 

The book blossomed out of a series of posts Ouellette contributed to the Cocktail Party Physics blog, chronicling her forays into math and her phobia of it. As Ouellette confronted her negative reaction to math online, “I realized there was a book here,” she says. The book begins and ends questioning the cause of her -- and others' -- fear of calculus. Ouellette suggests it may be social, especially in regards to differences in math performance between the sexes.   

The Calculus Diaries will be a be an excellent accompaniment to summer fun. In the course of her research, Ouellette goes to Disneyland where she gets drenched on Splash Mountain with her physicist fiancé -- now husband -- and they discuss how the rate of their clothes drying is an exponential decay curve. She even prepares for the eventuality of the undead using epidemiological modeling as applied to zombies by a scientist named Robert Smith (an appropriately darkwave name). According to their Smith and Ouellete's calculations zombies could wipe out the human race in four days. 

Ouellette frames the power of math in a coastal scene with her fiancé. “We were both sitting there admiring the sunset and he leaned over and he said, 'It would be absolutely fascinating to take a Fourier transform of those waves.' I could appreciate the sunset just fine but he saw something else in there that I missed, and that is the true value of mathematics.” The language of mathematics enriches life in the same way that wine terminology enriches taste. 

The Calculus Diaries may be written for the novice, but I think it could appeal to a calculus connoisseur or anyone that appreciates summertime or sunsets -- or zombies. 

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