pumaman2001 Rips on: his calculus book...
Written: Oct 26 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The book is easy to navigate...it also weighs a lot...oh wait...
Cons: Overpriced, poor explanations, demoralizing...
The Bottom Line: Unfortunately, if you are reading this article with any intent of purchase, you're probably being forced to buy the book...
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| pumaman2001's Full Review: Calculus: One and Several Variables Books |
For the past three semesters (yes, I am a college student), my understanding of the vast world of mathematics has been greatly influenced by one book, Salas, Hille, and Etgen's Calculus: One and Several Variables. Over the past year and a half, I have noticed a great deficiency in my overall ability to understand, comprehend, and do problems pertaining to higher level mathematics. I owe any and all previous successes in my Calculus I and II courses to my professors, not to this book.
This book, as is the case with most textbooks, was bought because I had no choice. The cost was comparable to a week's wages from my meager-paying but fun summer job. The campus bookstore supposedly gives you deals on textbooks. Great...I get a book I really don't want, I spend a whole lot of money, but I get it for a little less than what it retails for. That's no bargain. Many of you probably know this feeling and have thought the same thing...so enough of that.
I know it seems odd to be writing about a textbook, and if you're still reading this, you may think I'm writing this to be funny or out of pure spite, but this is, in my opinion, a genuinely bad text book. A textbook should supplement a professor's lectures and provide an accessible reference source for students with questions pertaining to course material. Salas, Hille, and Etgen's Calculus: One and Several Variables utterly fails in both respects. Although the layout of the book is logical and the chapters are easy to navigate, the content of the book seems to come up short in many ways. The book is saturated with proofs but lacks sufficient explanation pertaining to practical application. The authors seem to shy away from using written explanation, banking on the sheer volume of mathematical equations and such to give the reader a comfortable grasp on the subjects within. This technique would be highly efficient in a society where letters were banned, but our society is still pretty keen on using our words.
Example problems are just as frustrating. A section of the book may include anywhere between 50-100 exercises, of which 10-15 can be solved using methods described in the text. The rest of the problems can safely be said to be impossible without the use of an outside source (professor or teaching assistant who already knows better). A section in the back of the book contains answers to all odd problems in the text. However, this section merely reinforces the already acknowledged fact that my solutions are wrong and that I have little clue as to what I'm doing. A solution guide (with detailed solutions to problems) would be a much welcomed addition to the book. Unfortunately, that would almost single-handedly eliminate the possibility of the professor assigning graded homework as most honest and hardworking students would quickly flip to the back of the book and mindlessly copy the solutions to the homework onto their papers.
Thus I am left with a book that I feel I payed an outrageous sum of money for, a book that falls woefully short in its goal to aide in my comprehension of mathematics. This book, in short, is lousy.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
pumaman2001
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Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 3 members
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