Product Description

Customer Reviews (18)

Just as described
I received exactly what was described.The book was used but the only sign of this was a slight bend in the cover corners, but the pages themselves were spotless and unmarked.This was a great purchase!

Recieved the correct book in very good condition.
I got exactly what I ordered. A shame I couldn't get it shipped in 2 business days, but nevertheless, a success.

Math textbook
The book is used, so there are some flaws. Overall, it's in a pretty good condition.

Caculus I Hardcover
I would buy from Zachary Pellen again. He was very quick to email me,
and send the book quickly and very gracious. The calculus book was in
excellent condition like said. Great way to purchase used books for
college.

Better than most...but only marginally!
Apart from it's insane price tag when purchased new this calculus book is better than most cal books I've used in the past.At least you have an online resource to show you how the problems are worked where they are broken down step by step. This was a big help for me especially since I am not a math genius!With most cal books of the past you had meager (if any) resources to assist you. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a book for people about to take calculus, and for survivors of calculus who still wonder what it was all about. It gently explains the basic concepts and vocabulary without making the reader ever do a single problem.

Even if you cringe at math, you'll enjoy the book's irreverent style and vivid imagery. A couple of hours from now, when you're done reading, you may be surprised that calculus no longer seems nearly so frightening ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

understanding calculus concepts
I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. The underlying conceptsof calculus are explained very clearly.Forget about the cat stuff.. it is irrelevant, notdistracting.. but strange. The rest of the book is great though. Understand.. this is not a math book and will not dothe work for you. Whatit does is explain in non mathematical terms,what your math teacher is trying to explain using the opaque language required of mathematicians. read this before math class, then review applicable parts during math class and you will surely benefit.

What is Calculus???
I have done physics, statics, strength of materials, and basic circuit analysis all at the algebra level because I never knew what calculus was. This book explains what calculus is without doing the math. After reading this book I read "Who is Fourier" by College of Lex and "Calculus The Easy Way" by Douglas Downing. And finally learn what Calculus is.

The cats have succeeded
According to the authors, cats want to keep people confused about calculus, and I think that cats helped to write this book. Actually, I have been reading a lot of math and science concept books, trying to find any that really clarify the ideas, processes, and applications; technique is best learned with a good textbook. I did not find the analogies in Calculus for Cats to be particularly engaging or enlightening, but this short book does act as a primer of sorts. I would have enjoyed this book more if the authors had focused on interesting real-world examples rather than on mouse-catching examples.

Learn what your cat is really up to.
The authors make an analogy between what they are trying to accomplish in this book, with an English teacher who first lets his students hear a poem read, before analyzing it technically.This analogy holds up to a point, but not completely.In some ways, the conceptual, no pain approach to calculus presented here is more like an English teacher reading an English languge poem to a bunch of students who can't understand English.

The language of math is still, and always will be numbers.I was left wondering about too may concepts because the real work, the math, was left out in many instances.After reading this book, I went through a more mathematically oriented book oncalculus, suffered with the number crunching, and came to a better understanding of the calculus.No pain, no gain is true in this case.

I also didn't like the way the book was organized with all the chapters running together. More section breaks would have helped.

On the up side, the authors had a difficult job, and did an admirable job.I did indeed come away learning something.Part of the problem I had with this book was probably that I wasn't using it as a supplement to a normal calculus textbook in a normal calc course, but rather was using it for self-study on its own.If you are currently enrolled in a calc course or have previously taken the subject, you might feel better about this book.

Helps me keep up with my son!
In my continuing quest to always be the source of all information for my son, Calculus For Cats has saved me! As his math skills continued, I was starting to pay for sleeping through Calculus in High School. But Ken Amdahl saved me. This is a perfect book for anyone wanting to learn the concepts of Calculus ... even if you hate math and cats!
... Read more

Product Description

Your INTEGRAL tool for mastering ADVANCED CALCULUS

Interested in going further in calculus but don't where to begin? No problem! With Advanced Calculus Demystified, there's no limit to how much you will learn.

Beginning with an overview of functions of multiple variables and their graphs, this book covers the fundamentals, without spending too much time on rigorous proofs. Then you will move through more complex topics including partial derivatives, multiple integrals, parameterizations, vectors, and gradients, so you'll be able to solve difficult problems with ease. And, you can test yourself at the end of every chapter for calculated proof that you're mastering this subject, which is the gateway to many exciting areas of mathematics, science, and engineering.

This fast and easy guide offers:

• Numerous detailed examples to illustrate basic concepts
• Geometric interpretations of vector operations such as div, grad, and curl
• Coverage of key integration theorems including Green's, Stokes', and Gauss'
• Quizzes at the end of each chapter to reinforce learning
• A time-saving approach to performing better on an exam or at work

Simple enough for a beginner, but challenging enough for a more advanced student, Advanced Calculus Demystified is one book you won't want to function without!

Customer Reviews (8)

Well written, easy to understand
I bought this book to help me in multi-variable calculus calculus class. The subjects that were in the book were great and very helpful, unfortunately there were a lot of things left out. This book would probably be better for a class that combines linear algebra with multi-variable calculus, at my school they are separate classes. We covered a lot of things that were not even mentioned in the book. If you are considering this book make sure to take a good look over the table of contents and make sure it's worth it.

5 stars for quality minus 1 star for quantity.

Advanced Calculus DeMystified
I found this book to contain very poor explanations of the problems presented. I would not recommend wasting money on this book. Search for a better book for help with Multi-Variable Calculus!

Excellent introduction to the practical core of its subject
In relatively few words, and quite painlessly, this book can teach you the core of advanced calculus. The examples are easy at first and never "jump" to an incomprehensible level. The exercises are numerous enough to ensure you get the point.

Not a thorough treatment, of course. That is not the purpose. This book will take away the initial horrors and set you on a course of comfortable understanding. You will "get it". And quickly.

Buy it now.

needs serious revisions
I bought this book to better understand my calculus textbook, and ended up using my calculus textbook to better understand this book!

The practice problems are very hard to understand. 90% of the problems in this book are worded in such a way that I could not even figure out what I was even being asked to solve. The wording of the problems is very hard to follow, it is very unclear how the information that he is giving you fits into the formulas that are there.

Not a bad book, but...
I took a course in vector calculus and linear algebra 15 years ago but was forced to drop out of college and have forgotten most of the material. I am preparing to go back to college and complete a degree, so I want to get caught up.This is not a bad book as a supplement to a good text, but it's not a good text book on its own.I thought I'd be able to use this by itself, but I ended up using my calculus textbook to actually learn the subject matter, then I used this text to fill in the gaps and review. ... Read more

Product Description
Calculus for Biology and Medicine, Third Edition, addresses the needs of readers in the biological sciences by showing them how to use calculus to analyze natural phenomena—without compromising the rigorous presentation of the mathematics. While the table of contents aligns well with a traditional calculus text, all the concepts are presented through biological and medical applications. The text provides readers with the knowledge and skills necessary to analyze and interpret mathematical models of a diverse array of phenomena in the living world. This book is suitable for a wide audience, as all examples were chosen so that no formal training in biology is needed. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

This book is long time-coming for me....
Being a student of Biostatistics, Mathematical Epidemiology and Health Economics, this book came quite at a right time for me.
I have used Michael Spivak's Calculus for a long time, and other pure mathematics/engineering calculus books: but i always wanted a book about calculus that was tailored to the medical sciences, and yes i got it in Neuhauser's Calculus for Biology and Medicine.
However, i must say that, most people whose comments are immensely negative about this book are those who probably are lacking a rich background of mathematics, or have nothing at all, for that matter. Because if that is the case, yes, some concepts will seem difficult to grasp. But for someone like me who is already versed in precalculus, algebra and the like, and was just looking out for something more tailored to medical sciences, i find this book ideal.
So, yes, it will not answer all your questions, it will not be all-chewed up material for you just to swallow, it will need some ability and effort on your part.
But so far, it is the best reference in the market for calculus tailored to medical sciences.

Lies
The condition of this book was given as new or like new, something like that, all I remember is when I read the description, it made it seem as if the book was going to be perfect. When I get the book, it's falling apart. I have to tape the entire thing with masking tape so that the corners would stop peeling and also to stop the pages from falling out of the cover. Also, there was writing on many of the pages in ink, and somebody left their notes inside. If you're gonna sell a book online, at least take your notes out....just sending people your garbage now.

Horrible Examples-Nothing Like The Practice Problems
The frustrating thing about this book is that the practice problems are absolutely nothing like the example problems. Unless you have a teacher who expands on the ideas inside of the book you will have no idea how to do the problems. Good luck, this book is frustrating. It would be better if you had an answer book for the practice problems that contained evens and odds because the book continues to teach in the practice problems. Incredibly annoying when your teacher doesn't know anything either.

Calculus for biology and medicine textbook
Wonderful review in the first chapter of previous concepts and principles. We're only in chapter one (semester just started) but I was thrilled that it went over old material.

Required book for course
This was the required book for my daughter's college course.there are better ones out there but what can you do when the prof wants to use this one?

IMO, a calc book should be about calc, not calc applied to biological sciences (as if! I'm a practicing biologist for over a quarter of a century and the calc I learned I used mainly in chemistry and physics!). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Excellent Amazoner.
I received the book in very good condition , extremely fast shipped and at a great price.

Excellent
I purchased this AP calculus for my daughter and I got a ggod deal at amazon.

Elementary problems+weak exposition+no theory=Weak textbook
This was the textbook my high school had used for its AP Calculus classes. They had recently switched to this text the year before I had taken the class, and let me tell you, that was a mistake. There will, undoubtedly be many people who enjoy this textbook, but I say that anyone who is even remotely interested in mathematics will notice that much is missing from this book. For instance, the chapter on limits deals only with limits of continuous functions or the obvious case of single point discontinuities. Any realistic or important examples of a function not having a limit is shown to us in a cute window representing a graphing calculator's screen. Maybe this is to tailor the notion that my generation is full of "visual learners". Or maybe its simply to avoid any real math while allowing kids to think they have learned something legitimate. This problem of presenting very low leveled material is pervasive throughout (i.e as one reviewer has mentioned before, all the problems on limits can be solved by substitution...) The chapter on infinite series is a great example of this. The authors seem to have wanted anyone in middle school (let alone a senior in high school or a college student) to "understand" this textbook. Unfortunately, they shy away from even remotely complicated reasoning, especially where it is needed. The irony is is that by trying to make this text "readable", they leave out important mathematical reasoning that helps clarify and explain many of the more difficult topics. This leaves several chapters, such as the chapter on infinite series, completely useless and confusing despite the authors' intent. The authors need to realize that calculus is not supposed to be taken by middle schoolers, so do please not write a textbook assuming their level of mathematical sophistication and reading ability (a college textbook at the reading level of "young adult", give me a break). The best example that I can give to you of how the authors baby the reader is this: the section on the chain rule contains not a single explanation as to WHY this chain rule holds. Nope, the authors do not even attempt to explain anything here. Instead, they give us a picture of a pair of gears... This is the best they can come up with? You have go to be kidding me! How is this building mathematical understanding whatsoever? I have never heard anyone say "oh gosh, these gears really help me understand derivatives of composite functions!" The authors should not be afraid of including some real explanations as to what is going on. Anyone who might think they enjoy mathematics would greatly appreciate it. I would also appreciate it if the authors wrote a textbook that could actually halfway pass as a college textbook if they claim that it should be used as so.

Ok, so now that I have told you that this textbook is garbage, let us reminisce as to why such a textbook was written, and why it is currently being used. My own personal opinion is that kids are being pushed to take more and more advanced mathematics courses at earlier and earlier ages. There is the fear that they won't "look good" to colleges, the fear that they won't get their precious AP Credit (which no legitimate mathematics department respects), and the fear that they are falling behind unless they have seen what was previously believed to be college leveled work in their junior year. All of these factors push younger and younger kids into courses that they really shouldn't be taking in the first place. Now I know that there are obvious exceptions, and some students are incredibly bright, but are 80-something students out of 200 in my class really that bright to tackle full-fledged calculus during high school? No. All of this has lead to a new bread of math textbook that is so incredibly low-leveled that people feel comfortable enough presenting it to these "bright students". This shafts students out of receiving a far superior education if they had waited for college, but parents can sleep soundly knowing their little angels are smart enough to take college leveled courses in high school.
To summarize, this textbook is trash and the AP movement has gone too far.

review
the book came without a long wait. it was just like we ordered. We were satisfied

late arrival
Book was in good condition, only thing is that it was shipped very late. I received the book almost after 15 days of placing my order. ... Read more

Product Description
For ten editions, readers have turned to Salas to learn the difficult concepts of calculus without sacrificing rigor. The book consistently provides clear calculus content to help them master these concepts and understand its relevance to the real world. Throughout the pages, it offers a perfect balance of theory and applications to elevate their mathematical insights. Readers will also find that the book emphasizes both problem-solving skills and real-world applications. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Very clear textbook
I like this calculus book a lot so far. All theorems are proved, but they are also given an illustration or intuitive argument to supplement this rigorous approach. The exercise sets are typical and very good. Like most math books, the more challenging exercises at the end of a section where the problem says "show that..." or "prove that.." are beyond my abilities to solve in a reasonable amount of time, but they are still useful. I have a pdf of the instructor solutions manual and I study the solutions, understand them, then copy them myself without looking at it again. This approach really enhanced my understanding of the material. If any of you would like the instructor manual, comment on this review with the email address you would like me to send it to and I'll try to do it for you.

straight up gangsta textbook
Easy to follow, and very comprehensive in its text. Highly recommended for any beginner of calculus who wants an organized and deep experience in the world of calculus involving single and multiple variables.

Excellent Text
My class required Calculus: Early Transcendental Functions, but I found the examples way too simple given the complexity of the problem sets. Picked up this book based on a recommendation from a friend, and found its explanations more thorough and easier to apply to the more difficult questions. Instead of telling me THAT something was true, it helped show WHY it was true.

Great seller
Great seller! Shipping was very fast, everything was really smooth and I received the book very quickly. The book was in excellent condition, looked like brand new.

Hard to learn from
This is the required book for my Calc II class, but it is confusing me more than helping.Part of the problem is that a lot of the notation is different from what I learned in AP Calculus BC (Calc I), but it is also unnecessarily complex.Most of the information in this book is in the theorems, however they are written so that only a math major can understand them, and they are not explained in the surrounding text.In fact, there is little text explaining anything--the book seems to assume that people can understand things from the theorems it presents.Here is one example that stands out:

[example of previous theorem]

------------------
Theorem 11.3.8
a(n) --> Liffa(n) - L -->0iff|a(n) - L| --> 0
------------------

We leave the proof to you.

------------------
Theorem 11.3.9 The Pinching Theorem for Sequences
(more math shorthand)
------------------

Once again, the proof is left to you.
The following is an obvious corollary to the pinching theorem.
[Another theorem...]


I see many problems in just this short section:
1. There is no explanation for anything.Following the last theorem, there are some examples.How am I supposed to tell what these theorems are for?The fact that the proof is left to the reader is OK, since it is not necessarily important to the understanding of the material.Other books I have seen often put proofs in an appendix.
2. Does theorem 11.3.8 have a name?Something that might tell people without this book a little about what it does?
3. Shorthand in the theorems is unnecessary, and makes them difficult to understand for people not familiar with the conventions of the book.Shorthand is appropriate for a chalkboard, not a textbook.Instead of "iff" they could write "if and only if", and instead of using an arrow to say the limit as n approaches infinity of a(n) is L, they could write it in the more common limit form (which is hard to reproduce here).
4. The tone is slightly condescending when it introduced the "obvious" corollary, since it is not obvious to me.Even a one-sentence explanation of why it should be obvious would suffice.

This excerpt is representative of the rest of the book.I looked back at some concepts I had learned in AP Calculus BC, but they did not make sense in this book.If this book is required for your Calc II class, try to find something better and don't waste your time and money on this book. ... Read more

Product Description

Stochastic calculus has important applications to mathematical finance. This book will appeal to practitioners and students who want an elementary introduction to these areas.

From the reviews: "As the preface says, ‘This is a text with an attitude, and it is designed to reflect, wherever possible and appropriate, a prejudice for the concrete over the abstract’. This is also reflected in the style of writing which is unusually lively for a mathematics book." --ZENTRALBLATT MATH

Customer Reviews (17)

deceived by the publisher
I felt extremely disappointed to look into this book the minute I received it. I usually love all springer books specially for their top quality presentation. This book is an exception. You pay nearly [...] bucks for a book to get a fac-simile of the original with less margin space, larger fonts, and less line-to-line space making it overly populated of characters and ugly to the eye. Not even Dover books are like this, despite their lower prices.

I am definitely contacting springer on this and I am seriously thinking of returning the book to amazon and getting a used one with better presentation quality.

A Pleasure to Read
I just got this book. I've been looking at a lot of introductory books on Mathematical Finance, and this seems like one of the best. As other authors have said, the level of this book is consistent with graduate study. I happen to be a mathematician. This is the best book I've found for (graduate student and higher level) mathematicians interested in learning math finance. Also, if you're a mathematician teaching undergraduate math finance (and assuming you're not already an expert) I highly recommend this book for your "bookshelf." Having this type of in-depth knowledge provides the ballast you need to do a proficient job teaching.

Strikes a rare balance
I find myself wishing again and again that I had discovered this little book years ago. Steele goes through the basics of the parts of the stochastic calculus relevant for financial mathematics and applies it to basic financial models. The theory covered is basic martingale theory, the stochastic integral with respect to standard processes - that is, processes of the form X = A + M, where A is continuous and of finite variation and M is a stochastic integral with respect to the Wiener process. He proceeeds to develop the quadratic variation, Itô's formula, the martingale representation theorem, Girsanov's theorem and the Feynman-Kac formula. He also proves results of exactness of SDEs.

Although Steele often manages to pretend that his book is rigorous, it isn't. There are several occasions where Steele jumps over details, particularly about measurability. I don't mind not being given all the details, but it is a bit annoying that he doesn't admit when he's forgetting some details.

In any case, even though the book isn't completely rigorous, the basic structure of the proofs is often the right one. The really great thing about this book, then, is this: It shows how to develop the stochastic calculus relevant to fundamental financial models, and no more. Books like Karatzas & Shreve, Rogers & Williams and Protter are much more advanced than often is necessary. On the other hand, books like Björk or Duffie are much too sloppy. Even if Steele misses af few details here and there, most of the time, he is rigorous, and thus this book offers the rare combination of treating only RELEVANT theory (no general semimartingales here) and doing so rigorously.

A good companion volume is Karatzas & Shreve, which is much more detail-oriented. Whenever you find some holes in Steele's book, Karatzas & Shreve will usually have the answer.

nice treatment of a difficult subject in probability
I knew Mike Steele from my days as a graduate student at Stanford.He is also a Stanford graduate and a first rate probabilist.When I knew him he was doing some post-doctoral teaching at Stanford.He is a great teacher and writer.

Mike Steele has used the material in this text to teach stochastic calculus to business students. The text presupposes knowledge of calculus and advanced probability. However the students are not expected to have had even a first course in stochastic processes. The book introduces the Ito calculus by first teaching about random walks and other discrete time processes. Steele uses a lecturing style and even brings in some humor and philosophy. He also presents results using more than one approach or proof. This can help the student get a deeper appreciation for the probabilitist concepts.
The gambler's ruin problem is one of the first problems that Steele tackles and he uses recursive equations as his way to introduce it.

Brownian Motion, Skorohod embedding and other advanced mathematics is introduced and emphasized. After motivating the stochastic calculus and developing martingales Steele covers arbitrage and stochastic differential equations leading up to the fundamental Black-Scholes theory that is important in financial applications. It is not fair to criticize this book for lack of applicability. It is strickly intended to develop a firm theoretical background for the students that will prepare them for a deep understanding of financial models important in applications.

I am not enough of an expert in this area to know if Professor McCauley's criticism in another amazon review of this book is valid, but I do think he is a little too harsh in criticizing the ideology that Steele presents. The ideology is what makes Steele's lectures stimulating and interesting to the students.

A Beautiful MATH Book
Before I write this review, it's only fair to disclose that before even hearing of it I already had a very solid background in (graduate-level) analysis, which as another reader astutely pointed out is often considered "calculus" in the math community (I think the classic Calculus by Shlomo Steinberg, which can be found free online, has been used at Harvard for decades, while Tom Apostol's "Calculus," a misnomer to say the least, is the standard text at Stanford and Cal Tech - both are really books on advanced calculus and elementary real analysis). Part of the reason I am writing this is to clarify the distinction - many people aspiring towards quantitative roles on Wall Street don't know exactly what the mathematical prerequisites are for a particular subject or presentation, and hopefully I can help clarify this for other readers who, like myself, sought books like this one to learn the basics of mathematical finance.

On that note, Steele's book is a MATH book.By contrast, the wonderful book by Baxter & Rennie emphasizes core ideas with emphasis on the relationship between the three primary tools of the discipline (Martingale Representation, Ito-Doeblin Calculus, and the Feynman-Kac formula) while Shreve's classic emphasizes actual development of key models and techniques.Even Oksendal, which is aimed at a slightly more sophisticated mathematical audience, emphasizes applications at the expense of elegance.

In contrast, Steele's book is a math book aimed at Wharton (read: finance and economics doctoral students, likely in their second year) students with varied interests.Students taking this course probably have already taken a rigorous course in asset pricing theory from the academic viewpoint and need to fill in the blanks with the continuous-time techniques to extend these techniques and to understand stochastic calculus at the level necessary for research in economics/finance.

With that in mind, the book is versatile enough to be appreciated by different audiences.Steele certainly takes care give a clear, well-motivated presentation which explains to the reader WHY he is giving a concept, proof, or problem, and breaks the book up into small, digestible chapters.The problems are neither overly difficult nor disconnected from the text, although doing them is not an essential part of understanding the overall view.Furthermore, Steele clearly takes delight in the beauty of stochastic calculus, as demonstrated by Chapter 5 - Richness of Paths, which discusses the "interesting" properties of Brownian motion.For anyone who sat through a difficult analysis class thinking the whole purpose of the course was to annoy and taunt the student with irrelevant counterexamples (remember constructing a continuous yet non-differentiable function using limits?), this chapter will be especially fun.

In the first part of the book, Steele covers the basics of the random walk and martingales, introducing important theorems such as the upcrossing (downcrossing) lemma, submartingales and the Doob Decomposition theorem, the basic martingale inequalities, stopping times, and conditional probability (for those who are familiar with Williams' Probability with Martingales, the treatment is similiar).He then covers Brownian motion from both the standard perspective (a Brownian motion is a process such that...) and more intuitively as a limit of random walks (i.e. the "wavelet" construction/proof), using this subject as an opportunity to extend the martingale concepts to continuous-time.

In what could roughly be called the "second" part of the book, Steele develops the Ito integral as a martingale and as a process.Steele provides a lot of detail to the subject, perhaps in mind with the view that readers using stochastic calculus with more general underlying processes will have to understand the difference between a martingale and "just" a local martingale.He then quickly but sufficiently covers the standard topics of Ito calculus - Ito's lemma, quadratic variation, and the basic SDE, although in the Picard-type existence/uniqueness proof of SDEs he shows why the careful description of the Ito integral is not simply technical.

The next part of the book covers the "standard" topics in financial mathematics that would appeal to quant finance students .The chapter on arbitrage covers the basic Black-Scholes-Merton equation and its generalization to arbitrage pricing, although Steele (appropriately) addresses Black and Scholes CAPM derivation of their options pricing formula, which gives the finance/economics reader a historical perspective.The chapter on diffusions is excellent and gives all of the necessary elements for handling "nice" parabolic second-order equations.He even sneaks in Green's functions, series expansions, and the Maximum Principle without making uninterested readers have to learn them to follow the presentation.

In the last few chapters, he covers Martingale Representation, Girsanov's Theorem and their applications to more advanced topics in pricing, such as forward measures.The problems in this part of the book are nice because they help the reader understand the intuition behind a particular mathematical principle but not necessarily its application to a well-recognized model.The final chapter on the Feynman-Kac formula gives a very intuitive proof of its topic which helps the reader understand what is meant by "killing" a process and hopefully how that translates into finance; other books often just do a coefficient-matching proof, which really doesn't capture what's really going on.

I emphasize again that while the book is designed to serve a different purpose than texts such as Shreve or Baxter & Rennie, it can help readers of different backgrounds understand the basic elements needed for more advanced stochastic analysis and gain an appreciation for both the beauty of the subject and the underlying intuition liking the math to the finance.The prerequisite, though, is at least a (rigorous undergrad) course in real analysis, probably some familiarity with measure theory, probability, and L(p) spaces (or at least L(1,2,inf) spaces), and at least basic familiarity with the elements of stochastic calculus (Ito's lemma and computations with "box calculus", for example).For readers seeking a more comprehensive treatment of quantitative finance, this book is reasonably good mathematical preparation to understand Musiela/Rutkowski, and for doctoral students, understanding most of the topics in this book with a brief introduction to dynamic programming in the continuous-time setting is sufficient background to read Merton's book (consumption-investment problems) as well as understand the basics of derivative pricing. ... Read more

Product Description
This book is a response to those instructors who feel that calculus textbooks are too big. In writing the book James Stewart asked himself: What is essential for a three-semester calculus course for scientists and engineers? Stewart's ESSENTIAL CALCULUS offers a concise approach to teaching calculus that focuses on major concepts and supports those concepts with precise definitions, patient explanations, and carefully graded problems. Essential Calculus is only 850 pages-two-thirds the size of Stewart's other calculus texts (CALCULUS, Fifth Edition and CALCULUS, EARLY TRANSCENDENTALS, Fifth Edition)-and yet it contains almost all of the same topics. The author achieved this relative brevity mainly by condensing the exposition and by putting some of the features on the website, www.StewartCalculus.com. Despite the reduced size of the book, there is still a modern flavor: Conceptual understanding and technology are not neglected, though they are not as prominent as in Stewart's other books. ESSENTIAL CALCULUS has been written with the same attention to detail, eye for innovation, and meticulous accuracy that have made Stewart's textbooks the best-selling calculus texts in the world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Irresponsible Seller
This seller did not ship the item nor did the seller ever respond to inquiries.This seller should not be allowed to utilize this service if they are not going to use common courtesy/book seller etiquette.

Good...for getting your homework done
I would not recommend this book to anyone unless

a)You need to have the book available so you can do the homework
b)You're going to buy the solutions manual as well

Me and three classmates of mine bought the solutions manual and we can all agree that it has helped a lot. Honestly the main problem with this book is that there just aren't enough examples to really prepare you for the problems that you'll have to solve for homework and it also doesn't do much to explain how it went from point A to point B. If you don't want to buy the solutions manual(though I highly advise you to do so if you intend on buying this book) then look at the khan academy videos on youtube, ask questions on yahoo answers about the subject or just look online for a better understanding of the material(although again I advise you to also buy the solutions manual if you are going to buy this book) and make sure to read the book carefully. Infact read it ahead of time before the lecture so you'll know what to ask(since most likely you will have many questions about how they did this or that).

Again if you have the option of taking another class that DOESNT use this book then go for it(unless you already know that the book they'll use is just as bad or worse than this one). But if you're like me where you had no other option, make sure to buy the solutions manual as well.

Not the best book for Calculus
I'm not the best math guy in the world but I want to learn and this is not the book to learn with.Calculus in not easy to begin with and it helps if you have a good instructor, but this book treats the student as if they have mastered the subject.The examples are nowhere close to the exercises and there is not a lot of explaination.I like to to see A, B, C, and D, not just jumping from A to D.I still go back to my old calc books for reference.This book may be smaller than my first calc book but is sure lacks the material!!!

Overall, happy
The book in great condition for a used calculus book! I wish the shipping would've been faster, but the overall product was in fabulous condition!

This is an excellent math book
Hi, everyone
From my point of view, the book is brand new and clean.I love this book.In addiction, I hope you guys enjoy the book.



Book seller: Samuel ... Read more

Product Description
This is the second volume of Liberty Fund's "The Selected Works of Gordon Tullock", it is a reprint edition of the ground-breaking economic classic written by two of the world's preeminent economists - Gordon Tullock and Nobel Laureate James M. Buchanan. This book is a unique blend of economics and political science that helped create significant new subfields in each discipline respectively, namely, the public choice school and constitutional political economy. Charles K. Rowley, Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University, points out in his introduction, "The Calculus of Consent" is, by a wide margin, the most widely cited publication of each coauthor and, by general agreement, their most important scientific contribution." The book is divided into four parts, each consisting of several chapters. The introduction by Professor Rowley provides a short overview of the book and identifies key insights that permeated the bounds of economics and political science and created an enduring nexus between the two sciences.Part I establishes the conceptual framework of the book's subject; part II defines the realm of social choice; part III applies the logic developed in part II to describe a range of decision-making rules, most notably, the rule of simple majority; while part IV explores the economics and ethics of democracy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Read this to understand how government works (and fails)
Buchanan and Tullock (BT) wrote The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy in 1962, but their analysis is still worth considering.

Although the book is written for academics, it is not hard to read. Reasonable concentration and patience is all that's required to understand BT's exposition.*

Here's their big point: Constitutions should be designed from the perspective of individuals seeking their own interest, not a society seeking the greatest good for the greatest number.** They say this not because they think that people are selfish bastards, but because governments of/by/for the people need to be designed for the choices that individuals make. It's a question of "appropriate technology."

Here are a few notes that I made while reading:

* Economics "works" because people are different. That means that they can trade -- one man's trash is another man's treasure. The same holds for politics, where people have different needs and interests, and these change over time.
* Political choice is subject to uncertainty (NOT risk) over time, over multiple decisions. That means that a constitution should be designed to maximize "average" benefits (wins less losses) across many decisions (ex-ante unknown), allowing for trades in votes over many issues (logrolling). Decisions are made on two levels: At the ex-ante constitutional stage, general rules for making decisions are decided. On the current-event legislative stage, particular decisions are made. An individual may approve a constitution that allows him to be overruled, knowing that he will still gain net benefits from constitutional protections over time. On individual issues, the individual will vote for his own interest -- or trade his votes for other issues of greater importance.
* There are three ways to make policies: Private individual decisions, private group decisions, and public group decisions. Private groups need unanimous agreement; public groups do not. The most-efficient decision mechanism recognizes two costs: The cost to the individual of the mechanism (i.e., where the majority tells the minority what to do) and the cost of making a decision (i.e., the larger the majority required, the larger the cost). There is a sweet spot in the aggregate of these costs, where the cost to the individual and the cost of making a decision are minimized. You want to design a constitution to hit that spot.
* Note that a rule of unanimity has the lowest cost to the individual, since no individual will allow a policy that hurts himself. Unanimity has a high decision cost, since it requires that everyone agree on a policy.
* The literature of collective action tends to focus on the cost of not doing something; they miss the cost -- to the individual -- of doing something. This cost is perhaps a "choice externality."
* The more-disaggregated the decision authority, the lower the cost of a decision (subsidiarity).
* A single-issue referendum is inefficient because it does not allow logrolling -- vote trading that takes issue intensity into consideration.
* BT make a major mistake here, I think, in ignoring (or missing) the problem of logrolling a series of bad policies into place.*** Because they assume that voters -- not representatives -- are making decisions, they assume that logrolled-policies are beneficial on net. This assumption falls apart when self-interested representatives trade their votes for policies that benefit special interests. In the resulting circle of value-subtracting, robbing Peter-to-pay-Paul policies, they make everyone worse off, in multiple ways.
* Public projects need only benefit the proportion of votes necessary to get the project enacted. It's clear that these projects can be less efficient than private collective projects.
* BT's theories match observed constitutions and legislative processes.
* Representative voting means that a minority of 1/4 -- 51% of the voters in 51% of the districts -- can make decisions. Beware!
* An individual may accept private costs (e.g., from allowing prostitution to continue) if the alternative (collective control of sex) is worse.
* The best way to allocate a collective good is to give every individual an equal share (adding to 100% of the good) and then allow trading. That's what I have said for all-in-auctions and human rights and water!
* As government has expanded its range and allowed for narrowly-defined programs (remember that this was written in 1962!), the benefits to special interest groups have increased. From this, we can see that special interests will thrive as government's size and scope increases.
* Tullock says that game theory accepts the rules as given while economics allows the rules to change (or be ignored). This useful classification was discarded when GT was merged into economics. I make this point when discussing "conflict theory" -- where rules are endogenous -- but I wonder how many economists fail to consider what scenarios when rules can be broken.

Bottom Line: I give this provocative and useful book FIVE STARS. Every political scientist should read it. Anyone running an organization should read it. Citizens should read it. People upset about BP, or Iraq, or the DMV should read it. (Or maybe just read this review a few times and think about the difference between what you want government to do, what it can do, and what it does do.) * I tried recently to read Keynes's General Theory and got lost in his witty erudition. I left it on the bus.
** Something that Professor Wantrup, my benefactor, also understood.
*** I do not know if they updated their theory in the past 50 years (!) to account for this problem. Help?

Pathbreaking Analysis in Political Economy
The Calculus of Consent was a pioneering book when it was first published in 1962. While this book does have some overlap with the slightly earlier work of Anthony Downs and Duncan Black, Buchanan and Tullock took the economic analysis of democracy into new territory: constitutions. Chapter six is the core of this book. Here the authors specify the logic behind cost minimizing constitutional rules concerning public choices. The ensuing chapters sort out many details regarding the workings of democracy. This book is highly abstract, but it also contains much common sense and realism.

Buchanan and Tullock make a strong case for constitutionally limited government. In some respects this is an uncontroversial assertion. Who wants unlimited government in the strict sense? Who wants totalitarianism? Well, nobody does, when you put it that way. However, many people do want to disregard constitutional limitations when it suites them (both welfare state liberals and conservatives are guilty of evading American constitutional laws). Buchanan and Tullock make you think about where "we" should draw the line between the private and public sectors. Buchanan and Tullock make you think about how "we" can draw a line between the private and public sectors. These are the big questions of political economy. Whether you agree with them or not, they will make you rethink your position (provided you keep an open mind).

My main beef with this book concerns `political opportunity costs'. How do we know the value of forgone political alternatives? Can we know the value of forgone political alternatives? My own take on this last question is rarely. I was lucky enough to take classes with Buchanan and Tullock, so they have read my work on political opportunity costs (and commented on it favorably). Well, enough self promotion (my policy conclusions differ little from theirs anyway). The Calculus of Consent is a classic in modern political economy. All political science students should read it, especially at the graduate level.

Fascinating book
This is truly a fascinating book.Few books have had a greater influence on my political thought.The initial assumptions have a libertarian bent, but the construction of the argument from there is brilliant.As for an overview of the book, I feel that Mr. Templeman's review below was just about perfect.

High praise with a grain of salt
The main contribution of this pathbreaking book is by providing a rationale for the "counter-majoritarian difficulty": Why does society tolerate the "dead hand" of the constitutional framers to limit the freedom of choice of living individuals who wish to undo the constitution? The authors muse that in some previous stage, where individuals cannot identify their future preferences, each individual is threatened by two kinds of risk: The first is that others will attempt to take something that belongs to her and achieve their purpose by popular vote. From this prespective each individual desires that such a popular vote will not be made effectual unless supported by the largest number of participants. The second concern is that individuals might wish, in the future, to appropriate something that belongs to others, and may be thwarted by a popular vote, inimical to their cause. From this second perspective they wish to institute a rule that allows the appropriation to take place with only a minimal number of supportets. Each one of these two perils can be represented by a cost function, where the cost is a function of the number of voters necessary to carry the proposed measure; adding up the two functions generates an aggregate cost schedule for all rational players. The minimum of the aggregate function indicates the optimal number of individuals, as a portion of the voting population, necessary for carrying the proposed measure. If this number is greater than 50% of the population, this fact justifies the entrenchment of entitlements in a constitution. The grain of salt that must be added to this analysis is that the authors do not provide an explanation why that number might be greater than 50% of the population, or what might be the conditions that must be satisfied for the generation of that number.

Foundation for Studying Political Economy
A few other reviews have dismissed this book somehow as sloppy and even halarious.I would like to just make sure that the credibility of the work put forth by Buchanan and Tullock is realized.This book, along with a number of other great accomplishments, won James Buchanan a Nobel Prize in economics.To view this work as a right wing rationalization is way off base, study the works of Buchanan and Tullock and you will realize that statement is completely ridiculous. ... Read more

Product Description
Stewart's CALCULUS: CONCEPTS AND CONTEXTS, FOURTH EDITION offers a streamlined approach to teaching calculus, focusing on major concepts and supporting those with precise definitions, patient explanations, and carefully graded problems. CALCULUS: CONCEPTS AND CONTEXTS is highly regarded because this text offers a balance of theory and conceptual work to satisfy more progressive programs as well as those who are more comfortable teaching in a more traditional fashion. Each title is just one component in a comprehensive calculus course program that carefully integrates and coordinates print, media, and technology products for successful teaching and learning. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Needed for Calculus III
I have not read through this book thoroughly, but it has been good so far.The examples are understandable and there is plenty of practice problems for nailing the major concepts.

Calc 3 text book
I would like to be the first person to state that this book is specifically the last 6 chapters of the book, chapters 8-13. It covers the very end of Calc 2 and all of Calc 3. If you want a book that covers all three courses, or just calc 1 and 2, you must buy the others. The # of pages listed here are only like that becuase the book goes up through 1045. This book starts however at chapter 8 like I said. The Calc 1 and 2 book is this: 0495559725. And the Calc 1, 2 and 3 book which is much more money is 0495557420. Please don't make the mistake and buy the wrong book and blame the seller.

When using this book, I personally only used it for its examples and a portable edition. This book unlike other versions of calculus text books does not have an answer guide that you can buy, you must arrange it through the company website which is a real big pain. When doing Calc 3, you want to do A LOT of extra problems, and it helps to have ALL the answers neatly worked out for you. I would actually suggst that you wait until you get to know your teacher and see if they use this book hardcore in class, and assign problems directly from the text, otherwise, it's a waste of your money, since there are plenty of free calculus resources on the internet.

quite good for a math book
Before reviewing i want to make 1 thing clear: THIS IS A 2 PART BOOK. They had it going for ~300 at the bookstore in my university. I found it on amazon for a much cheaper price and bought it right away. But this version was only the second part, which would be used in the 2nd semester of my math class. Of course the one in the bookstore was both parts combined. So i had to buy the Single Variable version of this as well. Pretty lame that they would split up the book like this, but maybe i just wasnt careful enough. The least they could do is make the cover picture different for each book though, not just a SV and MV difference on the top left.
Anyways, the text itself is great. There are plenty of examples that are throughly shown and explained in beginning of the chapters. I'd say i am average at best in math and i followed how they did most of them with ease. The text quality is great, clear graphics and font.
on another note, as with most textbooks, the questions are generally recycled. My friend had another version, i believe it was stewart calculus 5th edition. A good chunk of the questions were in both books, just numbered differently. So maybe you could buy a cheaper version and just compare questions with a close friend to find them in your book.

Calculus 3
The book was in great condition and arrived earlier than expected. the service was great and would recommened the seller to other buyers.

Never got the order
Tried to rate Zero stars.I payed for the book with expedited delivery.It's over a month and I still haven't received it.No responses from seller whatsoever.I filed a complaint and am currently awaiting my refund. ... Read more

Product Description
CALCULUS + PEPPERONI / FUN = MATH SUCCESS

Do you want to do well on your calculus exam?Are you looking for a quick refresher course?Or would you just like to get a taste of what calculus is all about? If so, you’ve selected the right book. Calculus and Pizza is a creative, surprisingly delicious overview of the essential rules and formulas of calculus, with tons of problems for the learner with a healthy appetite.

Setting up residence in a pizza parlor, Clifford Pickover focuses on procedures for solving problems, offering short, easy-to-digest chapters that allow you to quickly get the essence of a technique or question. From exponentials and logarithms to derivatives and multiple integrals, the book utilizes pepperoni, meatballs, and more to make complex topics fun to learn–emphasizing basic, practical principles to help you calculate the speed of tossed pizza dough or the rising cost of eggplant parmigiana.Plus, you’ll see how simple math–and a meal–can solve especially curious and even mind-shattering problems.

Authoritatively and humorously written, Calculus and Pizza provides a lively–and more tasteful–approach to calculus.

"Pickover has published nearly a book a year in which he stretches the limits of computers, art, and thought."
–Los Angeles Times

"A perpetual idea machine, Clifford Pickover is one of the most creative, original thinkers in the world today."
–Journal of Recreational Mathematics ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Fun WAy To Review Calculus
I truly enjoyed this book as a way to review the strong points of Calculus.This book Does Not TEACH you Calculus but helps those who have taken it and want to refresh, review or rethink how certain things were done.
My students in BC calculus are reading it out loud in class and they find the fun quirky anecdotes refreshing as it strengthens their knowledge.I highly recommend it if you have already taken Calculus or as a book to read after you learn each topic in Calculus but not before.

A must see for 9th and 10th grade high school students
one word this book is: Enthusiasm

This book is the simple solution to every young student avoiding complications in calculus later in life. I was given this book early on during basic algebra (which I wasn't great at). When I finished reading this book I didn't claim to know calculus: I skimmed the first couple chapters over and over. But, I had an idea of what people meant when they said "Calculus."
America's public educational systems lack the rigor that is required by its universities and colleges because students are not getting "very basic" ideas early on. This book is a definitive solution. Reading parts of this book in 9th or 10th grade can give students time to let the fundamental simplicity of calculus percolate, something that cannot be rushed in a semester.
Students don't need trigonometry, or advanced algebra. They need insight early on. If you're searching for a calculus book because you're having trouble with it now, do your younger friends a favor and recommend this book. It could mean the difference between success and failure when they transition from Precalculus to calculus. This book should be treated the same way astronomy and science survey books are written to inspire interest in young people. Move over earth, life, and health sciences and make some room for Calculus and Pizza--food for the hungry mind.

Good calculus book.
This book is good for anyone looking to learn calculus.It starts out with derivatives, and explains them in an easy to understand manner.The whole book uses a neat little pizza metaphor, which helps the reader grasp the concept, and the examples are well explained and informative.Overall, the book is fun and educational, and I definitely recommend it.

Clear and Insightful
One of the best books for introducing calculus I have read.Ideas are creatively explained and just enough humor to keep you entertained.I noticed that several subjects, usually given short shrift in other books, were very fully explained.

I really enjoyed this book.Short enough to not be daunting for a "beginner" but thorough enough to be a real help for an inquisitive student.Really a nice job.

fun with numbers and food
A fun way of learning about calculus. The author has taken a very neighborhoody way of presenting a somewaht complex subject matter to his readers. ... Read more

Product Description
CALCULUS 5e brings together the best of both new and traditional curricula in an effort to meet the needs of even more instructors teaching calculus. The author team's extensive experience teaching from both traditional and innovative books and their expertise in developing innovative problems put them in an unique position to make this new curriculum meaningful to students going into mathematics and those going into the sciences and engineering. The authors believe this edition will work well for those departments who are looking for a calculus book that offers a middle ground for their calculus instructors.

CALCULUS 5e exhibits the same strengths from earlier editions including the Rule of Four, an emphasis on modeling, exposition that students can read and understand and a flexible approach to technology. The conceptual and modeling problems, praised for their creativity and variety, continue to motivate and challenge students. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Not the same as the US edition.
If you are buying this edition because it is oodles cheaper than the regular US edition, please note that in addition to all units being metric, the homework problems will be in a different order, and it also includes some problems not in the regular US edition.

book review
The book that I received was the book that I wanted, but I was under the impression that it would be in better shape than it was, but other than that, it was great.

AMAZON CHARGED ME $66 DOLLARS TO RETURN THIS BOOK
I ordered this book for my daughter to use at univeristy.Upon receiving it we realized that it did not have the Wiley computer code for her school and therefore she couldn't use it.I returned the book, unused within four days of receiving it and Amazon.com charged me sixty six dollars plus shipping for the return. DON'T ORDER FROM THIS COMPANY IF THERE IS EVEN A SLIGHT CHANCE THAT YOU WILL NEED TO RETURN THE BOOK>Heck don't even think of ordering from a book store that charges $66 dollars on a $132 book that was returned unused within 4 days.

Not Ideal
I used this book for my Multivariable Calculus class last semester.It is, by far, the worst calculus book I have ever used.Most math books are not particularly user-friendly, but this one is truly terrible.It is ok for introducing the very basics, but it does not give students enough information or good examples to complete the problems or learn the material as well as is expected in a college course.
All the example problems are far easier than the actual problems at the end of the chapter.The book seems to be proud of this fact because it says in its "note to students" at the front of the book that you will notice that the problems are rarely similar to the example problems.This is all well and good, but students need some basic exercises to complete to learn the general concept before they can be expected to complete difficult, application-based problems.I found it extremely frustrating when I could not get problem number one in a section, and I am a strong math student and did well in my course.
I also remember several sections that would introduce new theorems without any explanation and direct students to a problem at the end of the chapter.When I would get to that problem, it would offer absolutely no guidance whatsoever and simply ask you to show that the theorem is true.I found this completely useless.
Additionally, I attest that curl and divergence are explained better on Wikipedia than in this text.
The bottom line is that, if this book is not required for your course, do not go near it.However, if it is, go ahead and get supplemental materials (I thought How to Ace the Rest of Calculus: The Streetwise Guide, Including Multi-Variable Calculus was reasonably helpful) and try your best to get a good professor.

Worst Calculus 3 book
First off not all the odd problems are given in the back of the book.Second, the problems that the answers are given to are the EASY problems.Check this out...(this is the reason i'm writing this review...# in Chapter 17.3 #11-19 asked to draw vector fields and the answers section gives you the answer to the problems they solved as examples earlier in the chapter!!!How the F#*% am I supposed to learn if I cant check my answers.My professor asked us to solve Q#16
F(r)= -r/||r||^3there are no examples remotely close to this.

This happens in almost every chapter.It just stinks when you actually want to learn and all the teacher does is regurgitate the book who gives easy examples and asks some mind bending questions #Q#16 isnt mind bending but some are!)

If you need help with Calc just youtube MIT and actually learn something!

DONT BUY THIS BOOK, and if you see it on your syllabus find a good supplement!
... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Calc book
the book was shipped and was in the shape i expected... but there was not CD in the book. i was under the impression that both the book and CD would be sent.

Used to be a good book...
I used the 6th edition for a lot of the begining studying on many calculus subjects. While this book is easy, it still teaches you the stuff. You understand the material, not just get these mechanical processes to apply to the freakishly hard problems that you get. I would suggest looking for the 6th edition though...

The 7th edition isn't very good at all, one of my professors had an extra copy of this book so I got it... and well.. It wasn't very good... Look around in your local used book store for the 6th edition... That's what I recomend as a student.

superb
This is big, heavy, hardbound freshman text that will take you very slowly but completely into single-variable calculus.It also contains an exhaustive section on analytic geometry.

If you have sloughed off through algebra and trigonometry, or if you are coming to calculus after a long hiatus, this is the book to get.

This is because instead of launching directly into integration, the book's first couple of chapters (long chapters, too) are a careful review of just the principles you'll need from alegbra to get going.

There are even appendices at the end of the book covering various math ideas needed for the study of calculus (e.g., trigonometry), so you can be sure that if you're coming into calculus getting weak in the knees, this book has all the information you need.

In fact, I might be so bold as to point out that a determined student could conceivably skip from a study of elementary algebra directly to calculus because the book is laid out this way.

Also, the book's language is very simple, so if, for example, English is not your first language, this is a good choice for you.Complicated language and difficult cultural points are kept to a minimum.

Having said all that, I should point out that this book is not one for self-learners.This is because, as with any book for children, the answers to the problem sets are not included.

True, the publishers also offer a "students' solutions manual," in which the solutions the text's odd-numbered exercises are worked out ad nauseam, but that comes extra.

Excellent Book on a Difficult Subject
When my copy of Stewart fell apart awhile back, I decided to order this to replace it, since it was one recommended by CAS/SOA for Exam 1.I am not disappointed.This has more graphs and pictures than Stewart to help explain some of the fundamentals better.While the content and the layout are pretty much the same as other Calculus books, I particularly liked the writing style of the authors, who eplained things well without being really technical.If you are looking for a Calculus text that helps you solve the problems then I think this one is for you.There is a fair amount of rigor (i.e. proofs and theory) here, but no more than other texts.If you are looking for more of the theory behind the applications, I would try Apostol's 2 volume set which is much more rigorous.If you are looking for a text to study Exam 1, then this is the one for you.

Really baddddd, joke stuff,super baaaad.
Don't buy this book, this book is the design for students who don't know math particularly calculus. This book is designed not for beginner or advanced but is designed for mickey mouse. The content is totally horrible just joke stuff that you can answer very briefly without doing any writing in paper/computation. If you want be a mathematician don't even start using this book. You'll be in trouble in the future. ... Read more

Product Description
Fluent description of the development of both the integral and differential calculus. Early beginnings in antiquity, Medieval contributions and a century of anticipation lead up to a consideration of Newton and Leibniz, the period of indecison that followed them, and the final rigorous formulation that we know today.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Propaganda history
This is not a history of the calculus, but rather a profoundly biased and small-minded quasi-history of its foundations. Boyer kneels before the modern theory of the foundations of the calculus with religious awe, and crusades on its behalf with exceptional arrogance and obliviousness to reason. The purpose of a history of the calculus, according to Boyer, is apparently to condemn the infidels for their "misapprehension ... as to the logical basis of the calculus" (p. 8). His so-called "history" is in reality a thinly veiled sermon on the sins of the "logically unsatisfactory" (p. 4) and the "logically irrelevant" (p. 8).

Newton and Leibniz are chastised because they "did not fully recognize the need" for "the rigorous formulation of the concepts involved" (p. 47) and "were insensible to the delicate subtleties required in the logical development of the subject" (p. 5). To any sane person these historical facts show that there was in fact no such "need" and that Boyer's favourite "subtleties" were in fact not "required" at all. But not so to Boyer, who apparently considers his own intellect so superior that he has nothing to learn from Newton and Leibniz.

For a more specific illustration of Boyer's simplistic and dogmatic mindset, we may consider his appraisal of Berkeley's "objection to Newton's infinitesimal conceptions as self-contradictory" as "well taken" and "pertinent" (p. 226). Here it is useful to make a comparison with complex numbers (as Leibniz himself suggested, p. 215). The rules for discarding infinitesimals do not prove that infinitesimal calculus is self-contradictory any more than the fallacious reasoning that -2 = Sqrt(-2)Sqrt(-2) = Sqrt((-2)(-2)) = Sqrt(4) = 2 proves that complex numbers are self-contradictory. In both these cases, all that is shown is that these new entities do no obey all the laws of ordinary numbers. But no one ever claimed that they should, so there is nothing "self-contradictory" or "logically unsatisfactory" about either of these situations, as is obvious to anyone who, unlike Boyer and Berkeley, is not blinded by dogma.

A little technical on the historical side...
Boyer is a historian of mathematics, and I have his larger history text, which I like much better. I honestly expected a history of the calculus to be more of a fascinating read. The author does an excellent job of taking you through some of the finer points of this history and reasons why, for example, Archimedes should not be given credit for discovering the calculus, but why there is some justification for such a claim. The thing is, these finer points of the history are mentioned quite frequently even with regard to mathematicians whom I have never heard of. It seems that someone is always saying that so-and-so really discovered the calculus, and Boyer always points out why in fact they did not. The writing also can be rather verbose at times (this is sometimes entertaining). I do not see this text as appealing to a lay reader with an interest in the history of one of the greatest intellectual acheivements of all time: the calculus. I see this as appealing more to historians of mathematics or other such related fields. I started this book twice, and the second time, I made it about three fifths of the way through. It's hard to read a lot at once. It's a history book, not a book about the history. There are a fair amount of diagrams, and the math is interesting, if at times confusing, to follow. I can't say that my understanding of calculus is much deeper after reading the majority of the book, though it certainly does have a larger and more technical context.

More history, less real mathematics?
Only two things made me give the bookbetter than two stars:
the idea of an error term to:
d(x^n)/dx=n*x^(n-1)+error(f(x,n)).
And the mention of harmonic triangle:
t(n,m)=1/(n*Binomial[n,m])
The question of what would mathematics be like without Leibniz and Newton
and calculus really takes us back to what mathematics was like in 1600:
geometry, algebra and number theory. That mathematics had such a great part in the industrial revolution by making physics, a science based mainly on derivative calculus, makes me think that we would have sailing ships and horses still.
The fact that he pretty much leaves out fractional calculus is another
strike against him presenting a true history of calculus.

Mildly instructive
but atrociously written: this book is an epitome of the shift/reduce conflict -- some paragraphs defy parsing altogether. Overall OK if you're into calculus to the point of worrying about its history or if you want to get to understand how, and even more why it came about. Although the hows definitely prevail over the whys here, unfortunately. The book is far from flawless, but still, if you can get through the stultifying writing, it will enlarge somewhat your overall conceptual view of calculus. Recommended? Perhaps. If you have time.

Fascinating material, questionable presentation
The first thing I noticed about this book is that it is written with an intellectually arrogant, indecipherable style which (I hope) would today prevent its being published at all.Here is a paragraph, verbatim, from the introduction:

"At this point it may not be undesirable to discuss these ideas, with reference both to the intuitions and speculations from which they were derived and to their final rigorous formulation.This may serve to bring vividly to mind the precise character of the contemporary conceptions of the derivative and the integral, and thus to make unambiguously clear the terminus ad quem of the whole development."

I admit that back in 1939, when this book was originally written, it was common for academics to express themselves in that sort of haughty, impenetrable prose.But that doesn't make it any easier to read today, and it doesn't really provide those people with an excuse for having written that way.Didn't it occur to them that their writing might be read by real human beings?There are plenty of mathematical writers today who can write in real English without sacrificing rigor or depth.

Secondly, I recommend that everyone read the review by the reader from Phoenix (February 7, 2001).In particular, I agree with the criticism that this book takes a backwards approach to the history of Calculus, interpreting each historical idea and contribution in terms of the way we think of those ideas today.As Boyer certainly should have known, the proper way to relate the history of ideas is to place each idea in the context of its own time.Instead, he writes this book as if each ancient mathematician had tried and failed to reach the level of understanding which we superior moderns are now gifted with.I think it is important for a reader to read this book with this defect clearly in mind.

Having got those two criticisms off my chest, however, I have to admit that there is a wealth of interesting material in this book, and I don't know of any other place where it is all gathered together in one volume.If you want a detailed, in-depth account of how mathematicians and philosophers (they used to be the same people!) eventually evolved the ideas and methods of calculus, then this book is probably the best place to find it.

(I just wish the publisher would hire someone to translate it into real English!) ... Read more

Product Description
An outstanding textbook, complete with examples, exercises, and solutions, for an advanced calculus course in which differential forms can be used to introduce the subject. Enriching reading for its modern viewpoint and techniques. The diverse set of topics from which advanced calculus courses are created are presented here in beautiful unifying generalization.

This text has been adopted at: University of California, Davis Layfayette College, Easton, PA Western Illinois University, Macomb University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Eastern Washington University, Cheney ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Unique and Beautiful Presentation
Once in a long while you get to find a gem hidden between pages of a text. Edwards offers a powerful and stunning presentation of differential forms unlike any other. I wish I could say something other than "read it and see", but any review I can offer will not do justice to Edwards' stunning effort. The presentation is VISUAL while honoring the rigor of sound mathematics. It's simply -- stunning.

Think of it this way... Feynman is to physics as Edwards is to differential forms.

Chapter eight is nothing short of artistic expression in mathematics and science.That chapter, alone, should be studied by educators and integrated into modern instruction.

A Fresh Look with Outdated Notation
The first three chapters of this book are worthy of separate publication. They could be read by any bright undergraduate with full comprehension, and they introduce in a marvelously clear way the unifying power of forms defined on an ambient Euclidean space using basic examples from physics (work and flow).

Throughout the author clearly demonstrates the need for mathematical rigor. Whenever he uses an informal example or argument, he will always conclude the section by analyzing why a rigorous argument is needed and often outlining how such an argument could be achieved. Later on in the book (in the sixth chapter) he will finally develop all the arguments rigorously in full depth.

After this third chapter, however, the book starts becoming less elegant and more tedious.Linear algebra is discussed--but without any of the modern notation! Vectors are a rare character here, and matrices are scantly used other than to define ideas. Instead, you will be bombarded with a hoard of individual variable names. Keeping track of exactly what's going on with all the variable names and summations becomes a task of mental endurance, not ingenuity or understanding. Some modern terminology is actually discussed, such as vector spaces and linear transformations, but not until the end of the chapter on linear algebra, effectively defeating the point. It is as if the material were tacked on just to make the book conform more to the standard content coverage.

Note that here you will not find a k-form defined as a member of the k-th exterior power of the cotangent bundle of a manifold. Rather than such an abstract definition, this book is far more down-to-earth and hence will allow readers who do not have serious mathematical training to grasp the power and beauty of forms. Depending on your previous familiarity with forms and on your mathematical background, this is a plus or a minus. For me, it was certainly a plus because until recently the abstract definition I provided above was meaningless garbage to me.

Overall, this is a book that would be best thumbed through at a book store so you can decide if it's worth your time and if the author's style meets your taste. It's a very well-written book with plenty of fresh insights and a novel approach. Mistakes are nearly impossible to find. The author has a powerful and humbling command of mathematics. Unfortunately, the notation was often too outdated for my taste and hindered not only my enjoyment of the book but also my ability to fully understand concepts that appear difficult here because of the onslaught of symbols but which are really rather straightforward in modern notation. But I suppose some people may prefer the different notation.

Advanced Calculus: A Differential Forms Approach
The differential forms approach has considerable intuitive appeal as well as capturing more useful math for the physics or engineering student than the conventional approach. Edwards is a little too much the mathematician. The text misses the mark for the typical physics or engineering student who has taken only the usual calculus sequence and needs a little more intuitive introduction and to be led into the abstraction more gently. A more geometric approach might have been useful. I would have introduced the wedge product explicitly with a geometric explanation in terms of vectors.

My objective in purchasing the book was to fill in my background on the subject the easy way after pretty much figuring out what it is all about. For that the book is fine. But back in 1959 when I took advanced calculus, I think I would have found the books difficult without a good teacher to help me along. The book is probably not what I'll use for a course.

May irritate some readers
This book tries to be accessible to a very wide audience. In Australia, where I did my undergraduate studies this could have been read by a beginning first year university student.
The author does not even suppose a prior knowledge of linear algebra.
The result is that the reader will confronted with a swarm of u's v's,w's,x's, y's and so on, rather than more abstract notions of functions. In fact this book looks decidedly 19th century in places. This is the opposite to a book by Serge Lang ,Dieudonné or Rudin. To be fair the author has gone to great lengths to motivate the mathematics and for this reason it may well be very popular with engineers and physicists.
However, in my mind it makes it harder to see the mathematical forest for the trees. On the other hand, if you are prepared to slog though it all you will be able to use this book on its own as a self study book.
In the end I found a book more suited to me for the concepts of forms: V. Arnold's Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics.

Calculus done right
I'm just gonna come out and say it: this book is the best treatment of multivariable calculus that I've seen.

Unlike the usual multivariable textbook, this book gives lucid, clear, and elegant explanations and proofs for nearly all principles introduced, i.e. the method of Lagrange Multipliers. The author never keeps you guessing; he starts low and builds up quickly and brilliantly.

Chapters 1-3 serve as a good intro to differential forms and the fundamental theorem, almost worthy of their own book. Chapters 4-6 supply the theory that 1-3 motivate, and while they can get a little tough, if the reader has a pencil and paper at the ready, the results will be reaped. And then there's chapters 7-9. Each one of these chapters could be taken on its own, out of context with the rest of the book, and still serve its purpose. Chapter 8 is a true gem; only a knowledge of the opening chapters is necessary for an understanding of the interesting topics that are presented, and these serve as a great segue into more complicated materials. Chapter 9 is a standard treatment of analysis; again, it is complete enough to deserve its own publication.

What makes this book truly great is its versatility. A reader could start at the beginning, the end, or somewhere in between. There are many, many exercises that range from tests of basic understanding to proofs of more advanced results. Best of all, solutions, or at least hints are available for EVERY problem, which is very underrated. In short, this book is phenomenal for any student with a rudimentary knowledge of basic calculus who is interested in developing a full, broad knowledge multivariable calculus, getting a great intro to real analysis, and learning to connect all these things to more advanced fields.

P.S. This book is worth buying just for an explanation of the theorem on the cover; it is probably the most useful theorem in analysis, and it makes memorizing Green's theorem, Stoke's theorem, etc. seem barbaric. ... Read more

Product Description
Take the FEAR OUT of Business Calculus

Business Calculus Demystified clarifies the concepts and processes of calculus and demonstrates their applications to the workplace.Best-selling math author Rhonda Huettenmueller uses the same combination of winning step-by-step teaching techniques and real-world business and mathematical examples that have succeeded with tens of thousands of college students, regardless of their math experience or affinity for the subject.

With Business Calculus Demystified, you learn at your own pace.You get explanations that make differentiation and integration -- the main concepts of calculus -- understandable and interesting.This unique self-teaching guide reinforces learning, builds your confidence and skill, and continuously demonstrates your mastery of topics with a wealth of practice problems and detailed solutions throughout, multiple-choice quizzes at the end of each chapter, and a "final exam" that tests your total understanding of business calculus.

Learn business calculus for the real world!This self-teaching course conquers confusion with clarity and ease.Get ready to:

• Get a solid foundation right from the start with a review of algebra
• Master one idea per section -- develop complete, comfortable understanding of a topic before proceeding to the next
• Find a well-explained definition of the derivative and its properties; instantaneous rates of change; the power, product, quotient, and chain rules; and layering different formulas
• Learn methods for maximizing revenue and profit... minimizing cost... and solving other optimizing problems
• See how to use calculus to sketch graphs
• Understand implicit differentiation, rational functions, exponents, and logarithm functions -- learn how to use log properties to simplify differentiation
• Painlessly learn integration formulas and techniques and applications of the integral
• Take a "final exam" and grade it yourself!

Who says business calculus has to be boring?Business Calculus Demystified is a lively and entertaining way to master this essential math subject! ... Read more

Product Description
This book combines traditional mainstream calculus with the most flexible approach to new ideas and calculator/computer technology. It contains superb problem sets and a fresh conceptual emphasis flavored by new technological possibilities.Chapter topics cover polar coordinates and parametric curves, infinite series; vectors and matrices, curves and surfaces in space, partial differentiation, multiple integrals, and vector calculus.For individuals interested in the study of calculus. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Incredible Book
I used this book for my Multivariable Calculus course last semester and I truly loved the book. This book has plenty of examples in each chapter and it also has many problems at the end of each section. The sections are well explained and if you are dedicated, I am sure that you will find this book terrific. I am using a Edwards/Penney's book for my Differential Equations course this semester and the authors are fantastic! The only problem of this book is its cover: I am not a big fan of paperback; I would definitely prefer a hardcover version of this book.

Very decent textbook
I find this to be an excellent textbook. It might be lacking in terms of theoretical analysis and proof but for students who are looking to learn how to do the questions, it is an excellent source. The questions gradually increase in difficulty and it is easy to develop a certain level of ease with the subject of multivariable calculus, which is perhaps not always intuitive or obvious.

Garbage
The book was a xerox copy of the original book. The suggested price, given by the publisher, is about $74. I paid about $70
and received a xerox copy. I could have bought it directly from Pearson (the publisher), pay $74 and receive an original copy.

Worst Textbook Ever!
I wish I could find something good to say about this book, but I can't!

I don't understand why so many people like this book
Edwards and Penney is the perfect example of a calculus book that does everything wrong. The text is heavy-handed, blustering out expositions that stretch for mathematical rigor but always fall short. I'm amazed at how well it manages to not convey the main ideas of a section at the same time it manages to not convey how one would derive the results more rigorously. The result is that students who read end up intimidated by the introduction to many sections rather than educated.

Beyond the pseudo-rigor of the introductions, the examples and problems are generally well thought-out and challenging. Unfortunately, many of the problems are challenging for the wrong reasons. Instructors who are not careful will frustrate students with questions that do not primarily serve to reinforce the ideas of a section.

And a final, small criticism: The notation used in this book for vector calculus is barbarous. There are so many better conventions that serve as reminders of what to do rather than mostly arbitrary letters. ... Read more

Product Description
Updated to reflect the most recent Advanced Placement exams in Calculus, this manual presents four practice exams in Calculus AB and four more in Calculus BC, all with questions answered and explained. Extensive review sections offer brush-ups in functions and their graphs, derivatives and integrals, differential equations, and sequences and series. Additional features include test-taking tips and guidelines for using a graphing calculator. Review material includes multiple-choice questions, free-response questions, and many applications problems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

Good practice
This was my only book for both the AB and BC Calculus exams. I ended up with 5's on both. However my success cannot be attributed solely to the book. My teacher was good and taught us from the very basics. This book serves only as a review, it cannot replace a proper textbook or teacher.

The Best One Out There
We actually buy this book for my AP class. Students are encouraged to first thoroughly go through our text, and then as a review, we go right through Baron's. I felt the Princeton book is too easy, whereas the Baron's book does a better (much better) job on prepartion and then gives slightly harder practice tests which is the correct way to prepare for the actual exam.

Excellent practice and review
This book has lots of sample tests and review questions that helped me a lot when I was studying for the AP Calculus BC exam. The review was very thorough and covered all of the material that was on the exam, and there was even material not on the exam (those are marked with an asterisk and you can safely skip over them). The sample exams were very helpful although the questions are slightly more difficult than those from the actual exam. The same types of questions (albeit easier) appeared on the actual exam. After studying for the exam using this book and old exams, I found the actual exam to be very easy, especially compared to the exam questions in this book. So if you feel unprepared and want to over-prepare to feel confident, I highly recommend this book.

AP Calculus
It's concise and clear for a review book. No use if you're LEARNING form it though, since it's designed to invoke and strengthen memory rather than to explain and teach. Great, challenging questions with good explanations.

good as a supplement to the class
This is a book that is best for final preparation for the exam.Last year, in BC Calculus, I was absent for the series and sequences lessons due to an illness and I came back for a test studying through the Barron's books and I had trouble understanding it.The tests are definitely a lot harder than the real thing.I studied my [...] off and got a 5 on the actual exam as well as a 5 on the AB subscore. ... Read more

Product Description
Get ready to master the principles and formulas of pre-calculus! Master Math: Pre-Calculus is a comprehensive reference guide that explains and clarifies pre-calculus and introductory calculus principles in a simple, easy-to-follow style and format. Beginning with the most basic fundamental topics and progressing through to the more advanced topics that will help prepare you for introductory calculus, the book helps clarify pre-calculus using step-by-step procedures and solutions, along with examples and applications. A complete table of contents and a comprehensive index enable you to quickly find specific topics, and the approachable style and format facilitate an understanding of what can be intimidating and tricky skills. Perfect for both students who need some extra help or rusty professionals who want to brush up on their basic math skills, Master Math: Pre-Calculus will help you master everything from sets and functions to derivatives and integrals. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Basic formulas, principals, discussions of sequences and progressions and step-by-step directions link formulas to everyday life
Joining others in the 'Master Math' series is this fine introduction on calculus, covering the basics of sets, functions and integrals. Basic formulas, principals, discussions of sequences and progressions, and step-by-step directions link formulas to everyday life and provide calculus students with an excellent foundation for progressing to the next step. The result is a 'must' for any high school or college collection where calculus is an introductory course, and for any student taking it.

Relatively minimal breadth of coverage of calculus and geometry, perhaps less obvious due to larger than normal font.
This is a nicely written and well-organized book. While not error-free, the relative number of mathematical errors seems similar to review books from competitors.

The text's main flaw is its breadth of coverage. It's really closer in size to a pamphlet than a book. Particularly as the font appears to have been "artificially" enlarged to make this short work appear even longer. You can confirm this yourself by using Amazon helpful, "Look inside this book" feature. Compared to, for example, the author's "Master Math: Calculus" in this same series, the font here appears to be about 40% larger. In addition, sections often end with considerable white space remaining before the end of the page.

Even with its larger font, this is quite a small-sized text, excluding the index, of less than 170 pages. Using a more typical font size, this text would probably be around 100 pages long. Of the 170 pages. about 90 pages are actually devoted to pre-calculus and geometry. The remainder, almost one-half the book, covers calculus topics: limits, derivatives, and integrals. Thus, the breadth of coverage of both pre-calculus and geometry is quite limited. This allows the author to concentrate on some key topics in both areas, but a consequence is that breadth of coverage is relatively minimal.

One of the earlier reviewers said, "Lots of good trig". While what's presented is nicely done, the chapter on trigonometry is less than 20 pages, and there are some presentation problems. For example, the graphs for the sine and cosine appear to have been constructed from joined semicircles rather than displaying actual sine and cosine functions.

Although mathematical plotting software was widely when this work was published, the author did not include output from such software in this book. This has resulted in many inappropriately drawn curves not only in the trigonometry section, as mentioned above, but in the sections on derivatives and integrals.

This book is more a sampler of many interesting topics in its title, but it cannot be recommended if a relatively comprehensive coverage of pre-calculus, geometry, or introductory calculus is needed.

Go, get it!
This is the third one in the `Master Math' series. Like the earlier ones, this too follows the same style. Simple, but effective. As I told in the review for the first two books, I was looking for a book to brush up my math after 22 years. I am repeating the same stuff, just keep one thing in mind; this is neither a text book nor a replacement for it. Written in a very simple and clear language and it is not just a collection of formulas and definitions. If you are starting after a long break, it is better you follow the reading order, go through the first and second books first. I agree with one of the reviewer with respect to the value of `Pi'; it is written clearly as "The value of Pi is 22/7 or approximately 3.141592654" but when we divide 22 by 7, what we get is 3.14285714 `. About the confusion regarding the relationship of pi, circumference and diameter, the book clearly says that "More specifically, Pi is equivalent to the circumference divided by the diameter of a circle".This book won't disappoint you. If all you want is to brush up or learn the basics or a fast reference, this is the book for you. If you are serious about the subject, add one more book and don't minus this.

Some facts are just wrong.
This is a decent book if you want to review this material. However, when I read a math book and there are basic facts that are just plain wrong I get worried. In chapter 1, page 23, the author begins to discuss Pi. In just two bullet points the author makes several incorrect or incomplete statements.

1) "Pi defines the ratio between the circumference and the diameter of a circle." CORRECT, the author should have stopped here.

2) "More specifically, Pi is the equivalent to the circumference divided by the radius of a circle." WRONG. The formula for circumference is: Circumference = Pi * Diameter. Therefore Pi = Circumference / Diameter.

NOTE: Another reviewer has stated that the above statement is wrong. I stand by my statement. Either he has a different version of the book or he read it wrong. The version that I have was published in 1996 and the full paragraph says the following:
"Pi, or (symbol for Pi here), defines the ratio between the circumference and the diameter of a circle. More specifically, Pi is equivalent to the circumference divided by the radius of a circle."
The author starts off correctly but makes the error in the second sentence which is the statement I originally quoted.

3) "The value of Pi is 22/7 or approximately 3.141592654."Absolutely WRONG and Partially WRONG. You can NOT say that Pi IS 22/7. This is so commonly used. In fact, I learned the same thing in grade school. However, if we divide 22 by 7 it is not equal to Pi by the third decimal place. 22/7 = 3.142...and Pi = 3.141...which leads me to the partially wrong portion of the statement. Whenever giving an approximate value of Pi it should be followed by ...

So, while the book can be a good review, be careful.

Table of Contents
Master Math: Pre-Calculus Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Geometry

1.1. Lines and angles 1.2. Polygons 1.3. Triangles 1.4. Quadrilaterals (four sided polygons) 1.5. Circles 1.6. Perimeter andarea of planar two-dimensional shapes 1.7. Volume and surface area ofthree-dimensional objects 1.8. Vectors

Chapter 2 Trigonometry

2.1. Introduction 2.2. General trigonometric functions 2.3.Addition, subtraction and multiplication of two angles 2.4. Obliquetriangles 2.5. Graphs of cosine, sine, tangent, secant, cosecant andcotangent 2.6. Relationship between trigonometric and exponentialfunctions 2.7. Hyperbolic functions

Chapter 3 Sets and Functions 3.1.Sets 3.2. Functions

Chapter 4 Sequences, Progressions and Series

4.1. Sequences 4.2. Arithmetic progressions 4.3. Geometricprogressions 4.4. Series 4.5. Infinite series: convergence anddivergence 4.6. Tests for convergence of infinite series 4.7. The powerseries 4.8. Expanding functions into series 4.9. The binomialexpansion

Chapter 5 Limits

5.1. Introduction to limits 5.2. Limitsand continuity

Chapter 6 Introduction to the Derivative

6.1.Definition 6.2. Evaluating derivatives 6.3. Differentiatingmultivariable functions 6.4. Differentiating polynomials 6.5.Derivatives and graphs of functions 6.6. Adding and subtractingderivatives of functions 6.7. Multiple or repeated derivatives of afunction 6.8. Derivatives of products and powers of functions 6.9.Derivatives of quotients of functions 6.10. The chain rule fordifferentiating complicated functions 6.11. Differentiation of implicit vs.explicit functions 6.12. Using derivatives to determine the shape ofthe graph of a function (minimum and maximum points) 6.13. Other rules ofdifferentiation 6.14. An application of differentiation: curvilinearmotion

Chapter 7 Introduction to the Integral

7.1. Definition of theantiderivative or indefinite integral 7.2. Properties of theantiderivative or indefinite integral 7.3. Examples of common indefiniteintegrals 7.4. Definition and evaluation of the definite integral 7.5.The integral and the area under the curve in graphs of functions 7.6.Integrals and volume 7.7. Even functions, odd functions and symmetry 7.8.Properties of the definite integral7.9. Methods for evaluatingcomplex integrals; integration by parts, substitution and tables

Index

Appendix Tables of Contents of First and Second Books in theMaster Math Series ... Read more

Product Description
This powerful problem-solver gives you 3,000 problems in calculus, fully solved step-by-step! From Schaum's, the originator of the solved-problem guide, and students' favorite with over 30 million study guides sold--this timesaver helps you master every type of calculus problem that you will face in your homework and on your tests, from inequalities to differential equations. Work the problems yourself, then check the answers, or go directly to the answers you need with a complete index. Compatible with any classroom text, Schaum's 3000 Solved Problems in Calculus is so complete it's the perfect tool for graduate or professional exam review! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (21)

Excellent source for practice problems.
This book isn't a study guide, it's a book of practice problems.This book is for you if you understand the concepts and want more practice applying them.There are worked-out solutions for every problem, so if you get stuck you can see what the next step should be.

If you are looking for supplemental instruction, this is not the right book.In that case you should look at the Humongous Book of Calculus Problems, and/or Jason Gibson's DVD.But once you have figured out how to do the problem, you are still going to want this book for the practice.

If you are a serious math student and want to understand Calculus, rather than just get through it, this is a must-have.

Very satisfied
The book arrived in as good or better condition than I expected. I would definitely buy from this seller again.

Getting back up to speed with Calculus
I went back to school after a 8 year break, and was very worried that my calculus would be a long forgotten skill.Between this book and forgotten calculus, I returned to school confident that I was not going to be blindsided by applied calculus.

A good PRACTICE guide- not a way to first learn the topic....
I bought this book and several others to help my daughter with her AP calculus.Along those lines, this book is not very useful as the AP examiners have gone off and deviated from the traditional bread and butter calculus topics (volumes of revolution, techniques of integration, related rates, max/min/inflection points, etc.). They have fallen in love with calculating averages, the fundmaental theorem of calculus, and their calculators (see my other reviews).So if your buying this book for that purpose, it won't really help as this book covers only traditional techniques and topics without the need of a calculator.

HOWEVER, for a supplement to traditional class material, this is a great book.I agree with the prior reviewers that this is not a book that will teach you calculus from the start - you need to already know how to take a derivative and integrate, what is meant by a volume of revolution, related rate, and so forth.However, if you want EXCELLENT scores, practice is the key and this book gives you a lot of practice.After a while, you will realize that there are only so many variations on a particular topic that can be tested and they keep coming up over and over again (I orginally took calculus in the 1980's and ran across the same problems).

In summary, if you need to first learn the basics of the material, this book is not for you. If you already know the basics and want practice on the bread and butter topics, this is an excellent way to do so.I doubt that your instructor will give you problems not covered in some fashion in this book.

Be very careful!
If you want a reference book, this ain't it. Nor a textbook. You must understand the concepts before you even open the volume. It would then be a great help in applying your knowledge to real-world problems.

I say, "would" because the numerous typos and mistakes make it a dangerous tool to use. Some errors are obvious (if annoying), some will mislead and puzzle you and some, well... just pray.

I give it a three because it may still be useful. Just be careful how you use it! ... Read more