Calculus: Preliminary Edition

by Robert Decker and Dale E. Varberg

Intended for a one or two term freshman or sophomore calculus course for engineering or science majors. This book is designed to motivate an understanding of calculus topics with the aid of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 013287640X
• ISBN13: 9780132876407
• Release Date: March 1996
• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Length: 651 Pages
• Weight: 2.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 8.0" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

awesome

i ordered it and got it in a very good condition and in time. customer service is awesome. my blessings. keep up the good work.

Good for Students and Instructors

When I was 15, this was the book that I taught myself Calculus from. Now that I'm a professor, this is the book that I use to teach Calculus. In this review I will give the pros and cons of using this book from both a student's and teacher's perspective. A Student's Perspective When learning Calculus, I read every page of this book and did every problem. Students will complain that examples and discussion in each chapter seem inadequate to do all of the problems at the end of the section. I feel that this is part of the design of this book. The problems are intended to be instructional. Indeed this book has a corresponding student solutions manual that helps students to check their work and see if they are "getting it". The problems in the book range from extremely elementary up to moderately challenging. If, instead of instructional problems, this book had given enough examples and text to explain all of the ideas, it would have to be over 2000 pages long. Students should think of the problems in each section as being part of the instruction instead of problems to test previously acquired skills. When teaching myself from this book, I was able to do all but a few of the problems. Granted I had to spend a considerable amount of time struggling with some of them, but for a talented and dedicated student, every problem in the book is accessible and most are extremely instructive. I should also mention that the book is very well written. Having never actually read a math text book from cover to cover back then, I didn't have too much problem tackling this one. It's very rare that a math text be thorough, informative, and easy to read. This one manages to be all three. The main drawback of the book is that the students solutions manual is absolutely essential and will be an additional cost. Even if money is tight, as it often is for students, make certain that you buy this manual. A Teacher's Perspective As I said above, the problems in this book are intended to be instructional. For this reason it is imperative that a teacher not just lecture from the text and examples, but dig into the problems and carefully choose the most instructive ones for in-class presentations or homework assignments. If you only lecture from the text and examples, you'll only be teaching your class a small fraction of what this book has to offer. If you use this for a course, do as many examples as you have time for. I dedicate one lecture per week to doing nothing but working problems. It might be best to work though the even numbered problems for your class, as the odd numbered ones all appear in the student solutions manual. The layout of the book is a little bit flawed. This book is aimed at three semester Calculus sequences in state universities and liberal arts colleges. It is not a meant to challenge exceptionally bright students. For this reason parts of chapter 2 seem inappropriate- specifically the sections on the rigorous definition

Classic "Attachable" book

Requirements for all books should be;(a). being able to feel attachment for.(b). clearly understandable to readers in the assumed level.(c). benefitial to buy and read.(d).[equivalent to (a), (b), and (c)]. unique.This book satisfies all the above conditions [and (d)]. The style is very accessible to everyone who knows algebra. Math lovers who want to go beyond algebra should buy this book. Now, its particular uniqueness are the followings: mine has been separated into many stapled pages, though I personally like to sort them whenever I touch the book; examples are enough to illustrate introduced theorems. Of course, it doesn't end up with down-to-earth proofs. Wherever that might happen, it says so, and theorems that can not be proven with attainable knowledge are "left for advanced Calculus courses." Consequently, all presented proofs are quite rigorous in understandability.(c) will follow for appropriate readers.Good to start with, and will be one of your old friends.

The Best

This is one of the most straightforward Calc texts I've seen.

Finally a great calculus book!

I was looking at calculus books for my mathematics department at the University of Wisconsin, and was delighted to find this book. It's concise without being overwhelming, accurate without being too wordy, and the topics are arranged in the order in which they should be taught. I will definitely recommend this book to my department for adoption!To provide a bit more detail: First of all, at 800 pages, this book is one of the "leanest" on the market; the authors have clearly made an effort to stick with the essentials. Still, the instructor can choose to skip some of the harder topics or proofs; the book can be used with technology; etc. Most importantly, the authors don't "lie" to the reader: When some proof is too hard for this book, they will give you some intuition and then send you to a more advanced book to see the "real" proof. Finally, the book is written very carefully, no tricky details are glossed over or swept under the rug.Overall, this is a great book! Try it!