Customer Reviews

Elementary Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(39)

 

 

I think this book is the best among the standard "undergraduate" textbooks for diffeq--i.e., the ones with flashy colorful covers that are re-released in a new edition way too often.

This book is a little bit more systematic than most...it's easier to sort out the logical dependency of the material, and as a result it makes an excellent reference. Another strong point of this book is that it goes a little bit farther than most similar books--you will probably want to hold onto this one and use it in a second course, even if another book is used.

In my opinion though, the best introductory books on differential equations are from the Springer Verlag yellow book series...check out the ones by Braun or Hubbard; they have more discussion and are more of learning texts than this one. I also think it's a total scam the way they keep releasing new editions of this book--not much changes. I've used the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth editions and I'd recommend any of them; nowadays the eighth edition should be sufficiently cheap to buy for next-to-nothing...

I used an earlier version of Boyce & DiPrima and hated it like most everyone else here. (Why is it that all the crappy textbooks live on, edition-after-edition, inflicted on a new batch of students year-after-year?) To get through my DE course I used the book by Dennis G. Zill. It was pretty good. Zill's book is still around. Comes in several different flavors.

For those looking for a better book than Boyce/Diprima I've listed all recent, introductory DE books I could find on amazon:

"An Introduction to Ordinary Differential Equations" by James C. Robinson (ISBN 0521533910). This provides a very gentle introduction. does not cover Laplace transforms.

Shepley L. Ross has 2 books: an intro book (Introduction to Ordinary Differential Equations, 4th Edition ISBN: 978-0-471-09881-2) and a regular text (Differential Equations, 3rd Edition, ISBN: 978-0-471-03294-6) which have garnered good reviews.

Can also try "Elementary Differential Equations" by Kohler and Johnson.

Physical Science/Engineering/applications oriented:

2 books by John Polking (one on DEs and one on ODEs/BVPs)
Elementary Differential Equations by William Trench
Fundamentals of Differential Equations by Nagle, Saff & Snider
An Introduction to Differential Equations and Their Applications by Stanley J. Farlow (ISBN 048644595X). He's also got a PDE book.

For the engineers: you might want to skip a separate DE book altogether and get a combined book. Something like Linear Algebra and Differential Equations by Peterson and Sochacki

OR just get all of Ken Stroud's engineering math books:

"Engineering Mathematics" by K.A. Stroud, Dexter Booth
"Advanced Engineering Mathematics" by K.A. Stroud, Dexter Booth
"Differential Equations" by K.A. Stroud, Dexter Booth
"Vector Analysis" by K.A. Stroud, Dexter Booth
"Linear Algebra" by K.A. Stroud, Dexter Booth
"Complex Variables" by K.A. Stroud, Dexter Booth

other options: "Differential Equations Demystified" by Steven G. Krantz / "2500 Solved Problems in Differential Equations" (Schaum's Solved Problems Series) by Richard Bronson / The Differential Equations Problem Solver ISBN 0878915133

Two books that involve computer/numerical methods would be:

1. A Modern Introduction to Differential Equations by Henry Ricardo
2. Differential Equations: An Introduction to Modern Methods and Applications by James R. Brannan, William E. Boyce. Although, I'd be leery of any DE book with Boyce as an author.

Of course, Dover Publications has inexpensively reprinted boatloads of classic math books including these DE titles:

"Ordinary Differential Equations" by Morris Tenenbaum, Harry Pollard. (rated highly)

Plus in addition to the Farlow book they have:

An Introduction to Ordinary Differential Equations by Earl A. Coddington
Introduction to Linear Algebra and Differential Equations by John W. Dettman
Differential Equations: A Concise Course by H. S. Bear

Many criticisms of this textbook are quite justified. The purpose of a good textbook is to guide students into utilizing proper problem solving techniques. This book is quite lacking in that department. Using Mathematica to solve integtrals does not teach a student much more than computer-based suckling. The authors of this book have obviously used a computer to solve book problems since many answers are arranged an extremely annoying computational logic which does not follow a human method of logical step-wise calculations. Hence many extraneous hours were needlessly spent to get answers to match "proper" book answers. The authors apparently don't realize most students aren't allowed to use Mathematica while taking an exam, so why waste time using it for homework? Finally, as a previous review stated, the book examples display great leaps of logic (hmmm...did they use a computer?) while simultaneously reserving the simplest problems for their examples. (I still don't know how the authors made the easy problems difficult when attempting to explain them, but they are very gifted in that department)

This is my favorite ODE book. Ever. But I guess I'm in the minority on this. I owned the 5th edition. My ex owned the 7th edition. Her book was a bit more flashy -- fancy graphics and whatnot were sort of distracting, but all the things that I love about my copy were true (for me) about her copy.

I really like that they approach the subject via a wonderfully balanced viewpoint -- they do a tightrope walk of being rigorous and making the book useful for us physicists, and our cousins, the engineers.

They go through practical theory but leave out the more exotic elements of ODE theory.

I found the examples to be extremely sufficient. Sometimes generous. I can either assume that something awful happened to the 8th edition or that the other reviewers are the type of undergrads who think that a book should have so many examples worked out that if their hw problem isn't worked out for them, the book sucks.

If you really want a zillion examples worked out, I have one word for you: Schaum's. Read it. Love it.

This is a textbook. It presents theory, it gives a few examples, and you're left to practise applying the theory.

I found the text to be very well written. They're not verbose, but they're not terse either. Very nice balance. The explanations and insights are masterfully written.

Where the book really shines is that it's a practical "how to" book. They cram a lot of different techniques into a nice relatively lightweight book.

The section of PDEs is sufficient and appropriate for the intended level of reader.

I love their problem selection. In fact, what I love most about their problems is that they often have "teaching problems". You learn solution techniques through a series of well crafted end of the chapter exercises.

Personally, I think this is the single best undergrad ODE book on the market.

If I could give this book a rating of negative infinity, I would. Its examples are sparse and takes many leaps of logic, its explanations are horrible, many of its key theorems are not emphasized enough and the ones that are emphasized are wrong, etc. The only good thing is that it has answers for every problem in the book.

Everyone I have talked to dislikes this book, although perhaps for different reasons.

I find the style opaque because it never clearly defines its terms or states results with precision (it goes without saying that it hardly proves anything). That is, it's not presenting sufficiently rigorously. Others find the style opaque because it's not presented sufficiently intuitively. The book is organized in surprisingly long paragraphs and typically states in words what would be much clearler and shorter in symbols. As a result, reading even the easy-to-understand sections is somewhat of a chore. Since it lacks both rigor and expository virtue the book should largely be avoided.

The book is perhaps useful as a set of problems with solutions.

I found Tenenbaum and Pollard's book rather good, well-organized, and easy to understand...you can also pick it up for $17 new. I have no recommendations for better books that cover numerical techniques or more advanced theory, but I'm sure other Amazon readers do.

This is the best mainstream book on (ordinary) Diff. Eqns. It is mainly oriented to engineers but a math major could benefit from it as well. Like most books on this subject it emphasizes on solving relatively small classes of Diff. Eqns, namely those that can be solved in closed form and like most of those books avoids, but not completely, the qualitative study of the subject. However, I believe that this is the best compromise of a "recipe book" and a book that really tries to encourage understanding of the subject.

The book suffers from too many examples and pictures. The examples take too much space and have too many details. I can hardly blame the authors for this - they, and the publisher, just want to sell more books, and they have therefore to follow the general trend. You either have to write a book like this, or a real one, like Arnold's book, but that would be a book for a few only. "Proof" in Boyce-DiPrima is a dirty word but so is in any other mainstream text on Diff. Eqns.

It was interesting to me to read most of the negative reviews here. Poor mathematical background makes many readers believe that the exercises are hard, the answers are put in weird form (meaning the reader has problems with middle school algebra), etc. If anything, many of the exercises are too easy. Those, who need Mathematica for solving integrals - you'd better retake your Calculus course. There are very few examples that really require Mathematica and they are mentioned clearly. Really interesting and challenging problems can be found sometimes but authors clearly understand that too many of those would hurt the sale numbers. One reader wrote: "This book makes ODEs and PDEs look much more difficult than they really are. " Well, like many other books, this book does not give you the slightest idea what ODEs and PDEs really are (try John's book as an introduction to PDEs), they are far more intellectually challenging and deep that most students can imagine.

After so many negative comments, why do I still think that this is a good book? Because you cannot beat the system, at least this is not the way, and the math culture of most readers and students is not adequate to appreciate a real book (try Arnold). If you want a book that is still readable by the majority of the undergrad students, then this is the best one. If you want a real one, look elsewhere but do not complain that the author does not show the steps when solving a quadratic equation.

As I was reading the negative reviews of this text, I found that my feeling were almost exactly the same as many others. The text makes the simplest concepts, which, when understood, are so simple, seem like impossible tasks. The notation is cumbersome and confusing, and while one may justify this in defense of formality, there is no excuse to sections which seem to tell nothing new. The problems in this text, while numerous, are horrendous in that they definitely require the use of computer programs such as Mathematica. The authors should realize that in order to learn new concepts (which, when viewed after the course, are actually so elementary), the problems must demostrate emphasis on the concept, and not the use of a table of integrals, and most frustrating impossible integrals. The examples in the text, while sometimes useful, seem to be the difficulty of what the problems should actually be. Actually, while those who praise the text point out that crtics of the problems are weak in Calculus or other mathematics, the fact is the text does not have difficult problems, but rather most tedious, ridiculous problems. Many hours of frustration await even the most avid mathematician in trying to get the answers to match with answers in the back of the book. Writing out pages to solve an integral using integration by parts five times hardly teaches the student a new concept; rather it intensifies their hate for mathematics to a degree where they think mathematics is actually a painful science.

I was long looking for a book on differential equations and I found this one to be the most easy to follow. There are lots of solved problems and interesting exercises. I recommend it to everyone who has had an introductory course in diff. equations, but who'd like to pursue a deeper treatment of the subject.

The examples are weak. Virtually no graphics. The reader is not given a clear, intuitive understanding of how to apply differential equations (DE) to real life problems -- scientific, economics, business. The style is cold and hard, almost lifeless. The subject of DE deserves so much more, given the true power they offer in so many fields. This was a sad waste of money, but I had to use it in my first college course in DE.