Customer Reviews

Boundary Value Problems

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

 

 

This book is good for a first course in PDE's at the undergradute level. It teaches you very little theory and most of the problems seem to be little more than a slight change in examples. The book seems to be more aimed for engineering majors than math majors. My suggestion is if you need it for a class buy it, if you are looking for a book for reference or to learn PDE's by yourself check out something else.

I originally purchased this text to help with my study for an undergraduate course in Partial Differential Equations and Waves. From start to finish, this book always presents the material in an easy to read and easy to understand manner.

Generally, the book gives a really good understanding on the topics of solving ordinary differential equations, and then the various types of partial differential equations, such as the heat equation, where the solution methods involved can be confusing at times. The book also has a large selection of worked examples and wide ranging practise problems.

The book has the effect where even if the reader is only armed with basic undergraduate calculus, it gives them a very good understanding of the material in a short time.

Used as a text in my Boundary Value Problems class at Prairie View A&M University. I found the text very readable and the numerous problems challenging, but not too difficult at all. Powers has written an excellant work for anyone who wishes to learn the heat equation, and wave equation. His worked out answers to selected problems is very helpful for the student. This book is a keeper to be used for reference after the class.

This is a very well written book for beginners. The solutions for the examples are in full detail and is easy to follow. Great book to teach yourself the fundamentals to Fourier Series.

This review does not address the relative merits of the books content. That is addressed in the other reviews here. However, none of those reviewers were looking at the formatting associated with this electronic version of the book. That formatting is totally unacceptable! The equations are tiny, much smaller than the associated text at normal levels of text viewing. The equations also do not scale when the text scales and they are not individually selectable for annotation purposes. In short, the equations seem to have been added as an afterthought leaving one to wonder what the publisher of this book thinks one buys a mathematics book for.
It is regrettable that so many publishers are trying to add a kindle format to their list of options without doing the same due diligence that they would perform if they were creating a print version of the book. If what you want is a good Differential Equation book and you are not tied to this particular book by some constraint then look at Differential Equations and Their Applications by Martin Braun. This book will show you how equations should be integrated (no pun intended) into a kindle formatted version. But don't buy this offering, you will be dissatisfied with it's shortcomings eventually.

Book was ordered on June 1st 2009. As of today July 7th, 2009 10:35pm, item has not arrived. I have placed a claim with amazon.com. It seems that seller does not keep up with sales.