 "Excellent book (5th ed), I still own it and use it ..." | 2009-08-11 |
| - Reviewed By secretbearer |
I used this book for a University Honors Calculus class that I took as a senior in High School. As a math enthusiast (my dad was a Math Professor), and compared to other math books, I would say that the exposition in this book is very very good. The authors were from MIT and U-Illinois, respectively (the latter is where I took the honor calculus class), and at the time it was being used at both schools.
Some people have criticized this book as 'repetitive' and 'obvious' but I HEAVILY disagree. Calculus is a set of tools for approaching geometric problems. There are hundreds of tools in this book. My honors calculus professor had us working one sub-section of the book EVERY NIGHT, FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR. In that time, we finished the entire book. I worked 4 problems EVERY NIGHT, FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR. Later on, I attended MIT, and I was helping the freshmen in their calculus homeworks 5 years later FROM MEMORY! Meanwhile, the MIT students, who had less practice (one problem set per week) quickly forgot what they had learned! So I was helping the upperclassmen to remember their calculus, too !!
Calculus is the very last "bag of tricks" subject that is taught in most math curriculums. The theory behind integration and differentiation and other techniques are all there, in the Thomas and Finney book. The burden is on the reader to understand the theory, before they jump to the practicum. It's true that Thomas and Finney do not ask you to derive new theorems, but there is too much material to allow this in a 2-semester or 3-semester textbook.
I wonder how far people have gone after complaining that there was too much rote practice in this book. In my case, I enjoyed the book and completed a PhD in theoretical computer science.
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 "---> Better Than Nothing <---" | 2009-04-26 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3T73AZ8D44Y5S |
I am on the brink of completing Calc II. Between this book and 2 other calc textbooks that I have, Larson 7e, and Stewart 5e - ET, I finally made it through calculus. (Damn public school system.) There are topics in this book that my other 2 calc books have provided a much better explanation for. If the three authors were to collaborate they could possibly produce a rather fine Calculus textbook. ---- Ultimately, there is NO perfect textbook.
If you find that you are having difficulty understanding concepts in one textbook try finding an equal counterpart by a different author. It has helped me.
Read and learn all you can. Don't be a participant in the dumbing down process. |
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| "Unbelievable classic!" | 2008-11-13 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3HAQF9ZDTP4R1 |
Words cannot explain how good this book is. This must be one of the best books ever written. This is the book that helped me understand the MEANING OF CALCULUS to the point where I can apply it anywhere. I came across this book 8 years ago and to be honest without this book, I would not have been able to understand all the EE theory that I learned afterwards. The chapters on multivariable calculus helped me understand undergrad EM.
So I conclude "A POWERFUL TOOL BOOK FOR ENGINEERS / PHYSICISTS" |
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| "Perhaps The Finest Academic Accomplishment of the 20th Century" | 2008-01-03 |
| - Reviewed By nickname9988 |
To easily make myself understood in the most important of technical and scientific circles, I have so far found two scenarios that work. One is first thinking through a concept on an emotional, gut, intuitive level (body as vector, particle, motion, mass, or what not) and then just sharing with the APPROPRIATE, well-behaved AUDIENCE. The other approach is to prepare a massive amount of simple, yet accurate terminology and then make brief, accurate statements to the APPROPRIATE, well-behaved AUDIENCE. For either situation where such scientific explanation is needed, this book has proven itself again and again.
Whether I'm imagining myself traveling along a three dimensional surface or learning exactly how the words "rise" and "run" can be used in relation to the concept of a derivative, this book makes it easy to look up concepts by index or table of contents and then review, refresh, and better understand the terminology and symbols.
Of all the required course materials purchased during my 6 year pursuit of a bachelor's and master's, out of the 5-6 thousand dollars spent, this book has proven itself the most worthy, above all others. In comparison, the rest of the required course materials come off as part of some sort elaborate book-store, department, publisher money-making kick-back scheme. With only a few exceptions.
Bottom Line: For learning about functions of one or more variables including calculus vector analysis, this is THE one-stop shopping experience. The selection and presentation topics are its best features. (If a little more depth in problem solving is truly needed, just pick up one of the great Schuam's like the one on Vector Analysis.) |
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| "Calculus when you are alone" | 2007-11-26 |
| - Reviewed By mneill7 |
The approach to the self study of calculus that I've adopted involves working through every problem in each section. This text is excellent for that technique. The authors present the material in sections that usually build upon on another and can be read in about thirty to forty five minutes while working through the examples. The writing is for the most part clear and easy to follow. Every now and then a section seems disjointed. The progress through differential and integral calculus of functions of a single varible (Chapters 1-7) is very thorough and smooth. The approach is both intuitive and mildly rigorous so that the student is not left thinking that calculus is not without rigor. The emphasis is on applications hence engineering and applied physics students will benefit most from this text. The introduction of transcendental functions is divided into two parts with most material in chapter six. The best aspect of this text is the problem set found at the end of each section. The authors have worked hard to build into the problems the material put forward in the text of the section. The problems are designed to reinforce both calculations as well as to provide stimulation to deeper thought (Theory and Examples section). Problems are divided into sets of problems reflecting the divisions in the section. These problems start as computational exercises and progress into applications and thought problems. Every concept can be looked at from different perspectives and the problems are designed to bring out this understanding of the ideas that are presented in the text. The emphasis is of course on the board applications of the concept. In addition the problems vary in the type of function so that there is a constant review of the techniques of approaches to solving the functions.
An average classroom problem set for a section would be fifteen to twenty problems that would take about an hour and a half for the average student. To work all the problems in a section (range 40-100) takes about six to eight hours.
I bought this text four years ago and a new edition has since been published. I am very satisfied with both the content and approach. I can pick up most texts on the subject and find that my working knowledge as learned from Thomas and Finney is more than adequate to follow the study. |
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