A Tour of Mistakes

Abstract

In these pages,1 Steven Lubet recently reviewed A Tour of the Calculus, by David Berlinski.2 Inspired by both the beauty of calculus and Berlinski's description of it, Lubet waxes poetic on the many parallels between the law and calculus. It is completely understandable--even admirable that one might be led to ruminations on the relationship between calculus and one's own discipline. There is little doubt that the subject of calculus stands as one of the great intellectual feats of Western thought. It has had profound implications for physics, engineering, economics and many other disciplines-so why not law? Alas, these philosophical musings would be more persuasive had Professor Lubet better understood what it was that he was writing about.