ISBN076374591X

I used this text in a second year differentail equations course and a second year vector calculus course. I like how this book explained the concepts better than i liked stewart (a classic first year calculus text) in some areas, like partial differentials and line integrals. Once you've read each section and thoroughly understand what was said there is no problem in the text you can't solve. However be warned this book is replete with errors, I found many and brought them to the attention of my TA.

This was a required course text for a junior-level math course in "Engineering Math" that I took as an undergrad. It has since proved an invaluable resource, both in later mathematics courses and in engineering classes/research (I'm now in my first year of grad school.) I have both used it as a review and as a reference in picking up new material -- it has a pretty good variety of useful math in it (everything from differential equations to vector calculus to basic complex analysis.) Although it doesn't go very "deep" into any one thing, it has enough in there to be useful for an engineer needing a basic understanding of each subject.

If you're looking for a good, broad mathematical reference book, this one should fit the bill. I've had a number of people try to steal my copy over the past few years (by "borrowing" it indefinitely), so I know that others out there have found it useful, as well.

I am extremely dissapointed with this new edition of the text and have one advise only: If you own 2nd ed., do not indulge in this new edition for even the errors (spellings for one) are xeroxed onto the new edition.

Therefore, for a review of the text itself, you may, without any compunction, refer to 2nd ed.'s comments, of which there are many.

I'm using this book for a calculus course right now, and it has been extremely frustrating. The answer key at the back of the book is absolutely filled with errors.

It's the most frustrating thing to spend hours figuring out where you made a mistake on a problem only to have the teacher tell you the answer key is wrong.

The actual content and explanatory sections of the book are pretty good though.

Bought this book as an alternative to getting the ridiculously expensive new edition. It is almost exaclty the same except for a few little chapter exerpts and special examples that I had to get from a friend's book, but other than that the vast majority of the problems and everything are identical. Some of them are numbered a little differently, like with the exercises switched places, but again, only a small percentage. The only thing I find annoying about this book is the few number of worked out examples. If you get this book, get the student manual that comes with it or that comes with the new version because I need a lot of examples to study off of and this did not cut it.