1 comments about The Humongous Book of Algebra Problems: Translated for People Who Don't Speak Math.

1. My 13 year old son is taking Algebra, which I haven't taken in more than a few years. When he's struggling with a particular problem, we pull out the Humongous Book of Algebra Problems for help. Mr. Kelley is funny, down-to-earth, and explains Algebra so that even I can understand it! We would be lost without this book.
   
   The book is organized like a textbook, but one that someone made great notes in! The explanations are easy to understand, especially if you don't speak MATH!
   
   The other wonderful thing we discovered is that the chapters are organized in the same order that they are taught in school - which may sound obvious, but for a 13 year old boy, consistency rocks!
   
   If you are looking for normal, human explanations on how to do Algebra, this is the book for you!

5 comments about The Art and Craft of Problem Solving.

1. The Art and Craft of Problem Solving is an excellent book that covers the essentials of Algebra, Combinatorics, Number Theory, and even Calculus from a problem-solving point of view. However, there are very few solved problems. I strongly recommend this book, but also suggest that the student study other books as well, books with many more solved examples, because this book alone does not provide enough experience in putting the concepts into practice.



2. A primary group of people this book is aimed at is those preparing for Math contests such as the Olympiads. Many such people study the subject on their own. An important step in such preparation is solving a lot of problems. While it is important to try to solve the problems on one's own, it is equally important to be able to verify that one's solutions are correct. Unfortunately, this book does not provide solutions to the problems. Hence, it is not very helpful for those who are studying on their own. There are many other books in the market which are better from that point of view: For example, many books by Titu Andreescu, "Problem Solving Strategies" book by Arthur Engel are all good books that provide solutions as well. The "Art of Problem Solving" (Vol. 1 & Vol. 2) by Rusczyk et al. are also very good and have separate solution manuals available for purchase.



3. I recently got the 2nd edition and it seems to have some additional material compared to the first edition. There is a new chapter on Geometry and with expanded treatment of calculus. Seems like there are a few more problems in each chapter.
   
   This is a must have book for those interested in competetive mathematics. The presentation is very good -- but since the material covered is rather complex, its not easy to do self-study with this book. The book doesn't have a solution manual -- I tried contacting the publisher to get access to their instructor site but was turned down saying that I needed to be an instructor using this as a textbook in class and so on to get access to the solutions manual. It kind of sucks when you are doing self-study to not have a way to get help. I wish Wiley will reconsider this and give folks like me who are engaged in self-study a chance to use this book effectively. It is some consolation that the books web site has a "students" section providing hints for some problems.
   
   Overall, I would still give the book a 5 star rating because it is a class apart and covers a whole lot of ground. The first few chapters on strategies and tactics to solve problems are by themselves worth the price of the book. Definitely worth getting.



4. Probably one of the best books for learning how to solve a math problem. It really flexes your mind. I still have a bunch of problems in there I have no idea how to do. Really great for pre-college and undergraduate students... Or maybe even graduate students, if you have a lot of time on your hands :)



5. I have to admit i am not through reading this book but this book is what was and still is missing in my education :-)
   
   Why?
   
   Well, in my opinion the author understands why many people fear math - lack of proper method(s) + lack of confidence. And the author goes about tackling this problem by doing exactly that!
   
   This book provides many "problems" - i love the way the author phrased the word "problem" - plus many words of encouragement to push its readers to attempt the problems to 3 goals:
   
   1) Have the courage to think out-of-the-box when it comes to solving problems;
   2) Have the confidence to tackle them;
   2.1) Building this confidence by providing the methods + the reader's willingness to get "dirty"
   3) Never give up (Take a rest if you must, but never ever give up).

No comments about Functional Behavioral Assessment and Function-Based Intervention: An Effective, Practical Approach.

5 comments about Schaum's Outline of Calculus (Fourth Edition).

1. not that great, if you have a good text, you'll notice that the examples are pretty much the same



2. In order to take an advanced statistics course (since I have been out of college awhile) I have to take a calculus test. They gave me a sample of 60 questions from prior years and recomended a text that cost $180!!!
   
   Well for 1/15 of the price of the expensive text, I can get about 55 out of 60 questions answered through this one. The ones that are not covered in this book pertain to complex integrations - I'll buy the Schaum's Advanced Calc text and get my answers and still have tons of money left over.
   
   *** Another thing is that the first few chapters are an excellent review of pre-calc, something I did not think I would need but it turns out to be more useful than I thought. ****
   
   The covering of some topics, like LaHopital's rule is better than most texts.
   
   I have not encountered typos yet - when I have that that I did - once I plunge into it more - turns out he is right and I was mistaken.
   
   ****Having numberous worked out problems and problems with at least the solutions to check yourself is GREAT FOR SELF STUDY ****



3. This book does provide coverage of all major material in traditional calculus,however the manner in which the material is presented is similar to that of a condensed textbook, which is neither entertaining nor completely clear. If you want a quick study guide then this is the book for you,provided you understand most information you read in a textbook. All in all, this book is alright, but I wouldn't depend solely on it.



4. I bought this book to supplement my class textbook when I was having trouble in Calculus I. I chose this book over the many other supplements available because I knew I could carry forward into Calculus II and Multivariable Calculus.
   As mentioned in many other reviews, this book provides plenty of practice problems, so if you're having an issue in one particular area in class or in the class's textbook, this is a good place to go to really thoroughly understand it. They provide a decent number of examples and solutions. Within each chapter are explanations of the lesson, followed by example problems with step-by-step solutions, and finally "Supplementary Problems" for you to solve on your own (though there are no answers in the back for you to check your work). It's also got some really good lists of trig formulas, geometric formulas, common integrals, and common derivitives.
   The only thing I dislike about the book is that the explanations are rather poor compared to a textbook, but it's hardly surprising seeing as how this is an outline and that it covers topics from the beginning of Calc I all the way through differential equations of first and second order in under 600 pages.
   I would totally recommend this book for the student looking to supplement a confusing textbook, or looking to brush up on concepts that have gotten a little rusty.



5. This book is great for when you're beginning Calculus, but it doesn't give intense hard problems for it. Great study guide to review the basics but isn't the hardcore stuff.

5 comments about Complex Variables and Applications.

1. This is a nice book for understanding the basic concepts of early Complex Analysis. The integral formulas, residue theorems, Fourier Analysis, infinite series/sequences, etc. are all covered. There are plenty of exercises and examples. Everything is so clearly presented, that it is easy for people with very little background in analysis to read (ie, you don't really need real analysis before reading this book).
   
   My problems with the book are thus: There are very, very few proofs to any of the theorems. I'd rather have more proofs than examples. The problems are almost all computational. Almost none of the exercises require much thought, although some of them will take a while to do. There is no discussion on the importance of certain topics to the wider context of math. No discussion of certain standard complex-valued functions like elliptic functions, zeta functions, or gamma functions.
   
   If anything, I see this as mostly a how-to book for engineers and physicists who come across complex variables in their work. For math students, I'd recommend the books by Shakarchi/Stein, Lang, Conway, Ahlfors.



2. God knows this book is used by everybody and their brother to teach Complex Variables. Why, I do not know. Dry as dust and even more boring. "Proofs" are minimal and the exercises are plug and chug. Still, it has the acceptance of academia. Enjoy.



3. Brown and Churchill's book is neither rigorous nor intuitive; it is a true pedagogical nightmare. The authors are extremely sloppy with their exposition, structure and rigor.
   Some trivial results are "proved" with pedantic detail, but even there the proof is not exhaustive. As an example, to prove sufficient conditions for differentiability (p. 63-5), two pages are devoted to setting up some elaborate structure, but the real meat (basically Taylor's theorem) is not even mentioned, rather the authors cite another text. Similarly, equality of mixed partial derivatives is waved off as "a theorem in advanced calculus." What is complex analysis but advanced calculus, and why do the authors here devote space to prove thoroughly trivial results (e.g. limit of sums converges to sum of limits), while leaving out other important foundations?
   A similar sloppiness is shown even in those results that are more fully proved in the book. For example, the theorem presented in Section 26 depends on a theorem in Section 68! Pedagogically this is inexcusable, as the authors introduce these results willy-nilly, not as a coherent whole; the book must be read at least twice to check its consistency!
   The layout of the book is awfully confusing. There is practically no white space, and a single font and font size are used throughout the book, for explanations, theorems, examples and exercises. Examples sometimes are placed within the section they illustrate, and sometimes bizarrely they are given their own section. This means that the table of contents cannot indicate the relative importance of book content. Likewise proofs are sometimes given their own sections, sometimes buried in an overly large section.
   The exercises are mostly computational, and usually they are spoiled by "hints" that are so exhaustive that the only thing left for the student to do is to move some symbols around as directed by the book.
   In general, the book causes both my mathematically rigorous colleagues and my application oriented colleagues to cringe in pain. Compared to some other works on analysis, this volume is a true abomination. Walter Rudin's Principles of Mathematical Analysis is an exquisite, mathematically thorough and rigorous treatise on the subject, in which practically every exercise is meaningful. That the publisher of the present book dares to charge as much money for this seventy-year old volume as Rudin's book costs is farcical.



4. I really hated this book enough to give it 1 star, but I have learned so much from it. It is true that complex analysis is harder than real analysis, and requires extra care in learning it, but I have always found it difficult to enjoy what I am reading.
   I have read 3/4 of the book, tried to reproduce most of the proofs, and solve all of the excercises in the sections that I read for a Phd qualifying exam. Most of my colleagues recommend Asmar's Applied Complex Analysis with Partial Differential Equations to this one. I have tried to take a look at it occassionaly. It looked Ok, but I can't be a good judge of that.



5. I purchased this book because the undergraduate course I took in complex analysis was taught by a professor who preferred to use Schaum's Outlines: Complex Variables (With an Introduction to Conformal Mapping and Its Applications) accompanied by some fabulous lectures. I didn't save my lecture notes, though, and I wanted a more thorough refresher in the subject than Schaum's can give. So, my qualifications when turning to this text are the following: undergraduate degree in math, previous experience with complex analysis, more extensive experience with real analysis, very recent review of multivariable calculus (which I mention because of the numerous parallels between some of the line integral theorems and contour integrals in the complex plane).
   
   When I first picked up the book, it wasn't quite what I hoped for. Very short sections are divided into well-organized chapters. The sections themselves are hit-or-miss in terms of both depth and breadth of material. Some sections deal with a topic that seems meaty enough to warrant its own treatment (branch cuts and branch points) but without going into anything near the detail necessary to use the concept; others devote an entire section to a single theorem (Cauchy-Goursat) and another section to its proof; others combine several new ideas in one section devoted to treating a larger concept, the way most mathematics texts do. These sections are, unfortunately, few and far-between. In skimming superficially over an important topic or ponderously plodding through a single theorem without tying it to other material, the authors have created a book that feels disorganized and nebulous.
   
   For my purposes--review of a subject with which I am already passingly familiar--this text works fine. I can see connections before they're introduced because I already know where the theory is headed, and my previous experience with mathematics makes it easier to see how things fit into place in the larger framework of analysis. But I have to wonder how an undergraduate with no previous experience in complex analysis would fare using this text. Concepts are introduced before they're used, and some material that I thought was pretty complex (pardon the pun, har har) is glossed over as if it were completely obvious.
   
   The poor organization and layout contributes to the difficulty in comprehension. While the chapters are well-defined, and the sections are at least labeled by topic and numbered, I don't see how you could find your way through this text without copious highlighting. Theorems are offset with a nice bold "theorem/corollary/lemma" in front of them, but several are typeset to take up several lines so that, after the first paragraph break, it's easy to miss where the theorem ends and the discussion begins. The proofs are even worse. I never thought I'd yearn so desperately for three simple letters, but QEDs are completely missing from this text. Proofs go on for paragraphs, often interrupted by figures or even examples, without any sign from the layout that a conclusion has been reached or a new topic begun. Figures are often useful but poorly placed, so that the material referencing them is on a totally different portion of the page. Some theorems are stated more conversationally than elegantly, but at least that means I get to practice rephrasing in my notes.
   
   The exercises in this text are very helpful. Examples are interspersed with the theory, often providing immediate applications and almost always assisting with the exercises at the end of the section. The exercises themselves are quite frequently guided with hints as to how to proceed (particularly with proofs) or accompanied by answers to enable work-checking. The progression of exercises is also very natural, working from simpler concepts to more advanced ones in a way that doesn't overwhelm the student.
   
   Generally, I would recommend this book to someone hoping to review a subject that they already have some understanding of. Enough of the theory is obtuse enough that I wouldn't recommend it to someone who was looking for something to help them better understand the subject, but, unfortunately, I also can't think of a BETTER text. Overall, this book has no killing flaws. It does what it sets out to do. I just can't imagine how the eighth edition manages to have organizational flaws and skimpy detail after seven previous editions for students to complain about.

5 comments about Pre-Algebra Demystified.

1. "Demystified" is more like "profoundly confusing." It's just another book rushing through problems with little or no explanation. It really angers me that there are so many books like this that promise enlightenment but provide headache. Maybe it'll work for you, but if you're like me and REALLY need this stuff taught SLOWLY step-by-step (meaning no steps skipped), then try another book. Upon reading this book, I felt as though it assumed I had experience in the subject it was supposed to introduce me to. Try Painless Algebra by Lynette Long-while not flawless, it is the best I have used thus far and has brought me, a math loser, into the game.



2. Although the DeMystified series promises to demystify math, it helped me in some areas;however, with this particular title I found the book seriously weak on practice problems. I bought it in order to brush up on my basic math skills, but in my experience with it, it wasn't enough to throw out five or ten practice problems per section and assume that I'd know the concepts well. Some, like me, need to be able to practice quite a few problems to get the idea or just to be sure that I understand the math concept correctly. I found this to be the books greatest weakness.
   
   One would do better to just study from their class texts since these works often do give you the practice and detailed explanation you may need. If one is looking to cram (shame on you), then this book may work. However, then again, it may not since there are so few practice problems.



3. HAHA! Ok, I'll explain why I am laughing. I have been working on this book and everything has been good until chapter 11 page 211. I remembered when I first bought this book, I read this comment and thought "ok the guy (S.Brown) just doesn't know how to answer the problem" I came on here looking for this comment to see if it was the same comment I had. That is why I am laughing. The author really does just give up after chapter 10! Although there are a few errors in this book, it's a pretty ok book. Considering I didn't even know my multiplication table before I started this book and now I can pass math tests easily. Yah! Except the graphing. Luckily I have three other math books that can help with this.



4. I bought this book (and a bunch of others) because I wanted to prepare myself for a college math assessment test and score high enough that I could jump straight into statistics (I know, pretty ambitious!).
   
   My current situation?
   
   1) I haven't studied algebra (or any math at all for that matter!) in about 20 years
   
   2) I didn't learn math in English
   
   So, after opening the first algebra book and realizing I didn't remember how to do even more basic operations, like dividing large numbers by large numbers, I decided I needed to get something that went even further back.
   
   I bought about 10 books, thinking that it was a good investment, as skipping the basic math classes at about $300, plus the cost of books, for each, would save me quite a bit of money.
   
   After reading about 40 pages of the first basic math book, I was very disappointed. It was unclear, complicated and just didn't make much sense to me. I started to wonder if things had changed THAT much since I used to study. I put the book aside and pulled this one from the pile. Well, it has 12 chapters and I have completed 8 so far. The book is great! I read some bad reviews and, who knows, maybe chapters 9, 10, 11, and 12 are rubbish... But I doubt it!
   
   The approach is logical, practical and easy to follow. There are quite a few exercises and tests at the end of each chapter, as well as a complete test at the end of the book. I usually complete a couple of chapters, then take all the chapter-end tests from the previous chapters again before proceeding. This way, the information stays fresh in my mind.
   
   I liked this book so much that I bought about 4 or 5 more books from the DeMystified collection, including Algebra and Math Word Problems (the latter by the same author). Ok, so maybe I buy books compulsively at times, but I am very excited about math, probably for the first time in my life.
   
   If you need to take a refresher course, or if you need support for classes you are taking, I truly recommend this book!
   
   Good luck!



5. Thank you, Mr. Bluman. You have cracked into my brain, and now I can do math, without a calculator, without feeling like my head will explode! Mr. Bluman is a gifted, no-nonsense teacher who can teach anyone math with this straightforward, brilliantly crafted self-teaching manual. He even tackles math phobia -it is real- and dispatches it effectively with tips to get yourself going every day. This book should be in every junior high and high school library. He gives you the tools and then with practice, you can solve the problems. The format of explanations step-by-step, repetition, practice, and practice tests and final tests in every chapter is an excellent approach to truly "getting it". Thanks a million!

5 comments about Differential Equations and Their Applications : An Introduction to Applied Mathematics (Texts in Applied Mathematics, Vol. 11).

1. I quite liked this book. It taught the material in a different order than I am used to, which gave me a more complete understanding. I would recommend it, especially to people who already know a bit about differential equations, as it is quite wordy and assumes some prior knowledge.



2. This book is extraordinarily clear as well as being concise (but never too much so) in the mathematical parts. Discussion of applications is verbose, but is kept in separate sections; this material can be omitted entirely or read later without any detrimental effect to the flow of the book. However, the discussion of the applications is interesting and deep, and would be useful (and fun) for motivated students to read.
   
   The book begins with a no-nonsense discussion of how to solve differential equations analytically. Unlike many books, it gives clear instructions to the reader as to how to know which techniques are applicable. Also, it does not introduce qualitative or numerical methods until it has already developed a number of analytic techniques, and in my opinion, this results in greater clarity than the path most books take of integrating (or should I say jumbling?) the material together. The book gradually and logically covers the ground between analytic and numerical, moving towards actually writing algorithms, which are included in the text. The emphasis is always on understanding. Exercises are straightforward and useful.
   
   My only complaint is that, in this modern age, the C programs should be included in the text and the Pascal and FORTRAN ones relegated to the index. (It is the other way around, alas.)
   
   This book is simply wonderful for anyone studying differential equations for the first time. I do not understand why undergraduate institutions use the more commercialized texts instead of ones like this. This is a great book; it would be excellent for a textbook or for self-study.



3. From a pedagogy point of view this is a bad book becuase of the way its chapters are organized and presented. There seems to be a lack of a natural order of topic in the book, specifically that theory and applications are intertwined/overlapped rather than placed in seperate chapters. Also, few exercises are presented at the end of a section.
   Putting aside the pedagogy philosophy, this is a great book for a one semester course in Differential Equations but I would rather choose "Differential Equations, The Classic 5th edition" by Dennis G. Zill.



4. This book discusses several excellent applications. I shall summarise a few of the simplest and most beautiful ones. Warfare models. Consider first a battle between two conventional armies, A and B. Each army has a constant efficiency coefficient (determined by weaponry, training, etc.): an A soldier takes out a enemies per unit time while a B soldier takes out b enemies per unit time. The battle is then described by the differential equations dA/dt=-bB and dB/dt=-aA. Dividing the first by the second gives aAdA = bBdB, which we integrate to get aA^2-bB^2=constant. The sign of this constant determines the outcome of the battle, since if, for example, there are side A troops still standing when B reaches zero then the constant must be positive. Thus the strength of an army is proportional to the square of its size, and this has an important strategical implication: never divide your forces. Now consider a battle between a conventional army A and a guerilla army G. The conventional army suffers casualties as before, dA/dt=-gG, while their offensive strategy consists in firing into the jungle more or less at random, making guerilla casualties proportional not only to the conventional army's efficiency a and size A but also the number of guerilla troops G, i.e. dG/dt=-aAG. Dividing the first equation by the second gives aAda=gdG and integrating gives (aA^2)/2-gG=constant. Thus the guerilla can divide its forces without loss, while the conventional army still does not want to divide its forces. Predator-pray systems. Consider the system of food fish and sharks. With no sharks around, the food fish would grow exponentially, x'=ax. The sharks alone, having nothing to eat, would die off exponentially, y'=-cy. In the combined system the food fish are eaten at a rate proportional to the number of encounters with sharks so x'=ax-bxy, and more sharks live as a result of this so y'=-cy+dxy. An equilibrium solution is x=c/d and y=a/b. We cannot find other solutions explicitly but we can prove that they are periodic (also very plausible from the direction field, should we choose to draw one; there are none anywhere in the book) and prove the following qualitative theorem: for any solution, the average number of food fish is c/d and the average number of sharks is a/b. Proof: Let x, y be solutions with period T. Take x'=ax-bxy and divide it by x to get x'/x=a-by. The integral of the left hand side from 0 to T is log(x(T))-log(x(0))=0, so the integral of the right hand side is also 0, so y-average=(1/T)(integral of y from 0 to T)=a/b. Similarly, taking y'=-cy+dxy, dividing by Ty and integrating from 0 to T gives x-average=c/d. Volterra used this result to explain why Italian fishers caught a larger percentage of sharks during world war I when overall fishing was reduced. If we assume that fishing by net simply catches a random handful of fish in proportion to their number then the system above becomes x'=ax-bxy-ex and y'=-cy+dxy-ey, i.e. x'=(a-e)x-bxy and y'=-(c+e)y+dxy, which is just the same system with different coefficients, making the new averages x=(c+e)/d and y=(a-e)/b. In other words: an increase in fishing benefits the food fish and a decrease benefits the sharks. Population growth. The standard model for population growth is the logistic equation p'=kp(1-p/s), where s is the maximum sustainable population. The observed periodicity of many populations is to be explained by a large population's susceptibility to epidemics, as is confirmed when we study an epidemiological model in detail later. But right after population growth we turn instead to the spread of technological innovations, which is not terribly exciting, but it can easily be translated into a simplistic model for the spread of a disease. The disease spreads in proportion to the size of the infected population p and, because of limited encounters as more people are infected, in proportion to the uninfected population (n-p), so p'=kp(n-p). But by factoring out the total population n we see that this is simply an instance of the logistic equation, where the total population corresponds to the sustainable population and the infected population corresponds to the living population. Thus mathematics tells us that the growth of a population is the spread of the decease of life.



5. I like this book for its excellent examples of applications.Later chapters give intro to linear algebra and Laplace transforms and delta function in an easy manner.I learnt these advanced topics from this book.This is not an ordinary class text book, but a good supplementary one....needs wider advertising.

No comments about Introduction to Linear Algebra.

5 comments about Differential Equations and Linear Algebra (2nd Edition).

1. Unless you use this book straight away after taking an intensive Calculus II course, you're going to have absolutely no clue how they are doing any of the problems. They leave the "explanations" at an unacceptably high-level abstraction so that only those very freshly well-versed in Calculus can venture an understanding. Also contains no refreshers, not even a simple list of common integrals or integration formulas from Calculus. Just a crappy book, in my opinion.



2. This book's attempts to teach anything do anything but teach. Each section has about ten pages of explanation followed by a bunch of problems. Unfortunately the explanations do anything but explain to people that are trying to learn math. If you're a math wiz you might be able to decrypt what they're talking about, but as a student I had no idea. In the examples the authors often use explanations such as "it is obvious that..." and "we remember from..." The lack of explanation (mainly laziness on the authors' part) makes it very hard to follow what they're talking about, and the problems afterwards often expect the reader to know things that weren't discussed or appeared as a one-sentence blurp in the margin. So unless you're a massochist or already know this stuff like the back of your hand and need a reference guide, spend your money someplace else.



3. This is by far the absolute worst math book I have ever had the misfortune of using. The discussions teach everything using either completely abstract formulae or by using the absolute easiest example of that problem type. Then you get to the questions, which expect you to have mastered the concept of the preceding 10 pgs or so and be able to extrapolate these concepts to other topics (which the book offers no explanation of how to do). Overall, I would say you're better off learning this material from your cat's litter box, as it will probably make more sense. Also, i'm sure your cat put more effort into its litter box than the author's of this text put into writing this text.



4. This textbook has a number of problems:
   1: It's expensive. I paid over $70, used, here on Amazon - it's over $120 new at the campus book store. This is particularly bad when you compare it to my other engineering calculus book, Thomas' Calculus 9th/Alternate edition - which is not only far cheaper (under $50, in good condition), it's also more than twice as long as Farlow's Diff. EQ.
   
   2: It's *extremely* technical. The descriptions are designed for a mathematics major. I am an engineering major - for my purposes, it is more important to understand the material and develop problem-solving skills than it is to learn abstract high-level mathematical concepts. Having technical descriptions is fine, but this text doesn't follow them up with "quick and dirty" methods and formulas. Thomas' Calculus, 9th ed., is far more approchable in this regard.
   
   3: The examples suck. They are too easy, too watered down, and there aren't enough of them. The text expects us to transform a few simple examples into the knowledge to do a whole series of complex problems.
   
   4: The problems are hard. Very hard. Sometimes, new concepts are introduced with a sentence or two *right in the problem set*.
   
   The purpose of the text is to teach the material and compliment the lectures by providing realistic problems. This text does neither.



5. This textbook is the most vague textbook I have every read. The examples give no further explination or clarification. The text use terms such as "it is obviously" and "this way is pretty obvious". The homework problems assume that you do each problem in order because several problems reference previous problems for clarification. Several problems use methods discussed in the problems section and are not explained in the text. The book also assumes previous knowledge to be mastered. The authors have an understanding of math symbols that take the place of words (i.e. "such that"), but I don't. I need explinations of these symbols and it wouldn't have been difficult to insert a note.
   I am disappointed that my school chose thise textbook to use. Avoid using this text for anything other than homework. I would rather read an "Idiots Guide to..." than study using this textbook.

5 comments about For All Practical Purposes: Mathematical Literacy in Today's World.

1. Before I actually received my copy of this book, I thought the other reviewers had to be exaggerating.
   
   They weren't. This book is horrible.
   
   -Even the simplest concepts take the author ten paragraphs to explain. I'm beginning to wonder if they paid him/her/them by the word.
   
   -There are lots of charts and examples in this book, but they are rarely ever on the same page as the text that explains them. The constant flipping back and forth has made the front of my book look like I wadded it up and stuffed it back in the cover.
   
   -This book is FULL of errors and incorrect solutions. I just spent 45 minutes working and reworking a problem because it didn't match the "solution" in the back of the book. I was beginning to think that maybe I didn't understand the material..and then I realized that the author screwed up and that the solution is incorrect. This is not the first time this has happened, and I'm only halfway through the book. :(
   
   If you have a good instructor (especially one that has figured out all the errors and can point them out to you), you might have a fighting chance. For those of you, like me, who are using this book for an online/distance learning course...you're in for a miserable semester.
   
   I highly suggest buying the study guide that goes with this book. It was written by someone else, and it has helped me immensely.



2. This book provides a very good survey of a variety of mathematical topics and their application. Depth of treatment is lacking sometimes, but the flavor is conveyed.



3. This is a tough text for a one semester course. It could easily be expanded into a two year math survey course. The material is interesting, but trying to fit it all into a semester makes the work too tough. There are other classes being taken in the semester you know.



4. I saw URI using this book for a course taught there. The book wasn't what I expected when I got it. The topics are ok, but I don't like the style of the book. The book is just verbose in my opinion. However, some people like that kind of style in a book. If you like a wordy book in mathematics then I highly recommend this book to you.



5. Mathematical literacy is an important characteristic in the modern technological world, powerful calculators and computers cannot replace the fundamental knowledge of how mathematics is used. People are bombarded with data, statistical and mathematical arguments and they must manage a large part of their world by applying mathematics. There is no greater argument to support this than the current home mortgage crisis in the United States. Many of the people who are facing foreclosure did not completely understand their mortgages and the consequences if their mortgage rates were to rise. The mathematics of finance are simple to understand, yet were so often ignored.
   The topics covered in this book are:
   
   *) Management science - the basics of graph theory and how it is used to plan routes; optimize the use of resources and plan the sequencing of the tasks needed to build a large object.
   *) Statistics - how data is collected, processed and interpreted to turn it into information.
   *) Probability - the basic rules of probability and how it can be used in statistics.
   *) Voting and social choice - the basic concepts of voting, how it can be made fair and how certain conditions can prevent a fair election from being held.
   *) Fairness and game theory - coverage of some of the basic principles of game theory and how apparently irrational choices can be shown to be thoroughly rational.
   *) Information science - some of the basics of encryption and data compression
   *) The geometry of growth, patterns and tilings
   *) The mathematics of finance - the growth of money earning interest, and the economics of resource allocation and consumption
   
   The breadth of coverage is certainly what the modern citizen needs to understand; recent elections in the United States demonstrate that citizens need to know more about how elections are actually held. As we observed in the presidential election of 2000, despite the fundamental resilience of the voting process, the American electoral system does not work well when there is in essence a tie.
   The exposition is readable; there are a large number of worked examples that cover all of the material. Key points are highlighted and a large number of exercises are given at the end of the chapters. Solutions to the odd-numbered problems appear in an appendix.
   The level of presentation is such that advanced high school or early college students can understand it. If done in high school, a full year course would be more appropriate than trying to punch through it all in one semester.