Way under rated!!
5/27/2007
I'm not sure why everyone thinks this book isn't any good. I bought this book for my differential equations class, and thought it was great! I found that the strong point in this book is that the author actually goes through and explains the concept in great detail before any examples are given (unlike most math text, including DEQ books). It helped me a lot because once the author got to an example I felt like I understood what was going on instead of having to go through the example two or three times before I had any idea about the theory involved in the topic. I also found the homework problems to be extremely well planned--almost every problem ended in a tidy compact solution (with the exception of the series solutions to the ODEs which were not nice at all).
I give the book only four stars because of two weaknesses: 1) the derivations of some of the formulas are a bit vague (I had a good time going throw and filling in missing steps and/or writing alternative derivations in the ridiculously large margins of the text) and 2) the RCL circuit was not explained well enough to be workable (I took electromagnetism the same semester and my physics teacher openly mocked the explanation of the RCL circuit in this book).
Overall, I thought this book was great and I was very happy with it. Maybe not the best book if you're trying to learn physics concepts, but it's a math class what do expect?
good stuff
8/23/2007the picture for this ad didn't match the cover of the book so i took a chance in buying it, because the isbn numbers matched. the book was correct and the time and condition in which it was recieved was great
You will know how to do it, but you won't know how to explain it
12/21/2007
First off, this book adequately teaches you differential equations. It's clear and concise - all except for one thing. WHERE ARE THE EXPLANATIONS!? Each section just jumps into examples without first explaining important concepts. I tried to find out exactly what a Laplace transform was, but all the book told me was that it was similar to a derivative, they both transform one function into another type of funciton. YEAH, THANKS.
I know how to do everything, I just don't know exactly WHAT I'm doing.
Diff Eq solution
1/25/2008
I find the book very helpful. It is worth the $25 or so. I like a lot of examples.
very helpful
3/30/2008I'm not one to say much so I'll keep this kind of short. It always helps to have another point of view and explanation other than those offered in the classroom, whether one struggles with this material or not. This book was definitely worth purchasing.