Customer Reviews

Advanced Mathematical Methods with Maple

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'll begin by noting the unintended humour on Amazon's part, the Preface is signed Derek Richards, Milton Keynes, January 2001, by Derek Richards of England's Open University. Milton Keynes, named for John Milton and John Maynard Keynes, is, of course the location of the Open University. Amazon credits the preface to Milton keynes. Not the first work that Milton Keynes has been credited with, certainly not the last. [This is no longer relevant as the attribution has been fixed.]

Anyway, to the book. Books on mathematical methods for physics have been lagging behind technical innovations. This book introduces Maple in the first three chapters and then uses it extensively in chapters that begin with functions, series and limit, and ranges through most topics in differential equations to dynamical systems. I would have liked to see an introduction to symmetry methods and Lie groups as they are particularly easy to implement on computer algebra systems. But then again the book is already long at 862 pages. Anyway, this book is a must have for working physicists and applied mathematicians. A good text for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students. Many solutions are available through the author's web site.

This book is to help you learn mathematics. It will not teach you much Maple.
If you want to learn about lots of things Maple can do, including such mundane things as plotting graphs, writing programs, etc etc etc, go and get a user's manual on Maple or an Intro to Maple book. I made the mistake of thinking this book was going to teach me Maple and illustrate what can be done using moderately common mathematical examples. I was disappointed. The first three chapters introduce basics about using Maple's command/response paradigm, but it covers nothing more than what the author abolutely needs for his subsequent tome on mathematics. The rest of the book has precious little Maple code in it anywhere.

My 1 star rating for this book is from the point of view of learning Maple; it might be quite good at what it's real objective is. Now that I know what it's all about the title seems honest enough "Advanced Mathematical Methods with Maple". However, you are warned.