Covering the standard agenda for a two-term course, the book is designed for classes where computers are used to teach and demonstrate calculus concepts. Students go to work on real-life problems where calculus is applied, and learn through problems-to-principles methodology.
James Callahan earned a B.A. from Marist College and a Ph.D. from New York University.
In 1975, Professor Callahan received the Lester R. Ford Award of the Mathematical Association of America and at Smith he has received the Faculty Distinguished Teaching Award and the Sears–Roebuck Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence and Campus Leadership. He has made research trips to England and France.
Callahan was the director of the Five College Calculus Project (funded by the National Science Foundation), and co–author of Calculus in Context (W. H. Freeman & Co, 1995). He wrote Geometry of Spacetime (Springer–Verlag, 2000) an undergraduate text in mathematics about relativity, as well as Advanced Calculus: a Geometric View.
Professor Callahan's interests include: geometry, dynamical systems, chaos and fractals, catastrophe theory, relativity, most areas of applied analysis and building things.