Customer Reviews

A Concrete Approach to Mathematical Modelling (Wiley-Interscience Paperback Series)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
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This is still my favorite book on mathematical modeling. The material is well-suited to a mature graduate audience in applied mathematics, but some of the ideas can be fed into an undergraduate class as well. What I really like about this book is the variety of novel models of real-world systems which I don't see elsewhere. Traffic modeling is discussed here with more realism than I've seen in other texts. This book is not an easy read, but very rewarding to those who persevere.

If you want to have most or even all modelling tools stressing interpretation and aplication, this is for me the best source! This is the book for learning to use, interpret and construct you own mathematical models. It starts from the ground, so also suited for self study. It focuses more on the interpretation and aplications but at it's end also on the construction of models. Mesterton-Gibbons has done a brilliant text.

"A Concrete Approach to Mathematical Modeling" has a great deal to offer professionals in many industries who are grappling with methods for modeling dynamic systems. Some minor errors were not corrected in the 2nd edition, but are corrected on the author's errata sheet. This minor point should not deter the serious student from delving into the text and its examples whole-heartedly. So, if you are looking for a great overview and provocative modeling examples, this is a great reference. It provided me with new insights and understandings, even with my rusty differential equation and algebra skills.

Russell Kurtz, Ph.D.

This is a good book with a lot of good exposition and useful examples. (I have the original 1985 Addison-Wesley edition.) Too bad the price is so high. I'm glad I went the Dover route. The Art of Modeling Dynamic Systems: Forecasting for Chaos, Randomness, and Determinism (Scientific and Technical Computation Series)

I used this book for a course in math modeling. I was not entirely pleased with the book, though, to be fair I was not altogether pleased with the class, either. I agree with the other reviewers that this book presents a great many tools for the interpretation and construction of your own models. However, I disagree with the other reviewers that this is a book sutiable for self-study, unqualified. I think the qualifications that they should add to their claim is that one should have at least a bachelors or even a masters in mathematics before one tries to teach oneself the art of math modeling from this book. I am a student of philosophy and neuroscience that does mathematics on the side. I found this book to proceed through what I found to be difficult series of equations as though they should have been common knowledge. This is a clear sign that the book was written with a more advanced demographic in mind. With that in mind, I think someone that has studied math more than me, more than a minors worth,or just has that knack for mathematics will find the book challenging and quite insightful. If, like me, you are not a mathematics wiz, I suggest saving this book until you have a little more experience in advanced mathematics.