Calculus

by Monty J. Strauss, Karl J. Smith, Gerald L. Bradley

Book Overview

Built from the ground up to meet the needs of today's calculus learners, Calculus was the first book to pair a complete calculus syllabus with the best elements of reform—like extensive verbalization... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0130918717
• ISBN13: 9780130918710
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Length: 1 Pages
• Weight: 5.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 8.8" x 11.2"

Customer Reviews

GREAT BOOK FOR ANY COLLEGE STUDENT - EXCEPT FOR THE REAL LAZY ONE!

THIS BOOK IS ONE OF THE BEST CALCULUS TEXT-BOOKS I HAVE EVER SEEN IN THE UNITED STATES. And I have seen about 20 and used about 15 in my entire academic life, on two continents. Most American text-books are written "just to make math look fun". This is one that does approach the concepts of limits, continuity, differentiability with some rigor and logic. There is still a lot of place for improvement, especially om the applications of Calculus to ... Physics, some examples are somewhat clumsy for a good physicist or an engineer who knows physics. HOWEVER, FOR THE MATH MAJOR AND UNDERGRADUATE ENGINEERING MAJOR IT IS AN EXCELLENT TEXT-BOOK. The student who wrote a bad review complains about the lack of answers.... Well, he must be a student who failed the course, cause no good student would need to look at the answers. The problems are very well selected and many mimic the already-solved examples. Plus, there is a student solutions manual that is sold separately! Some problems should be made somewhat harder in a future edition. IT IS A GREAT BOOK FOR THE AVERAGE TO GOOD STUDENT. AND A SCARY BOOK FOR ALL THE STUDENTS WHO WOULD NORMALLY RECEIVE A GRADE OF F, D OR C ANYWHERE AROUND THE GLOBE. Some people are simply not meant to pass Calculus and endanger the world with their bad engineering.

Some background...

Perhaps I can shed some light on why this book has received one star reviews. If you look at the date of the 1-star reviews you will notice they are all from quite some time ago. The reason for this is because they are actually reviewing the 2nd edition of this book instead of the 3rd. I was actually in Dr. Strauss's Calculus class (Fall 2000) when we were using the 2nd edition (he was not a co-author at this time). The general rule for the class was, if the answer you got did not match the answer in the back of the book or handbook, assume the text was wrong. I shudder to think of all the errors we found; however, the content of the book was still quite good. Dr. Strauss would catalog and submit all the errors his classes found, which is how he was invited to be a co-author. As a result, the 3rd edition is virtually error free in comparison, and I have no issues recommending this excellent text.

Great for math majors AND non math majors

Most calculus books are chosen for their mathematical rigor (like using precise definitions). While this is great for math majors (or at least mathematicians think so), the rest of the students are usually left clueless. This text gives rigorous definitions, but then after each definition, there is a "what this says" section usually accompanied by helpful illustrations. The examples and exercises are outstanding. I have used this book to help me prepare every calculus lecture I have ever given.

Very Challenging

Many people say that this book is bad. On the other hand, I think is very challenging. The exercises are not as simple as in other calculus textbooks. The book explains everything well and provides you with many examples. I am a math major and this book has been really helpful.

An excellent book

This is an excellent book for self-studying. I do not understand why some users rate it one star.