Customer Reviews

Elementary Differential Equations

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

Why anyone would choose this text to first introduce students to differential equations is beyond me. I've used this text both as a student and as a TA, and my hatred of it has only grown as I've tutored students out of it. Engineers and scientists don't need the lengthy descriptions provided in this text, which make it difficult to quickly refresh one's memory on a particular method. In addition, this text is suffering from a blight that affects many calculus and differential equations texts--moving important methods and/or concepts into the exercises. The examples are fairly good and provide the only way to figure out what is going on without spending hours reading. Its other redeeming quality is that almost all of the answers are provided in the back of the text, which is helpful to students who will rework problems until they get the right answer. Students should beware that instructors and graders quickly catch on to this fact, so you really need to work through to the right answer, or your score will suffer.

Additionally, this text's price is rising quite rapidly. I don't understand why it is, but the book certainly isn't worth its current price.

Don't buy this book unless you have to!

This book sucks. Yeah, I'm being really blunt here, but this is probably the second most useless math textbook I've ever used (the first being "A Friendly Introduction to Number theory"). Now, my beef is primarily with the text itself (the problems, while mostly dull, are useful for learning and applying the techniques -- so they serve their purpose well), since the explanations are hard to follow, written with gratuitously dense language, and are very murky and unclear.

For example, this book makes understanding the techniques of variation of parameters and undetermined coefficients ridiculously painful to understand. And don't even get me started on the chapter on Laplace transforms -- I could barely understand a single thing there!

However, it's not all bad. *most* of the earlier chapters' contents are pretty good. Still, there are some murky bits and random theoretical topics addressed only half-heartedly, but for the most part, they're okay.

Also, as I said before, the problems in this book aren't bad! My professor usually assigned suggested problems from the text and doing them really helped me memorize the techniques that I learned from Paul's Online Notes...erm, I mean from the chapter!

So yeah, it's an average, run of the mill, hard-to-understand textbook. If you're required to use it for a class, make sure you pay attention and not skip class thinking that you can learn from the book! If you're looking for a book for self study...well, I guess you can use it for the problems, but for the actual material, don't bother with it, just use Paul's Online Notes or ask for help on math forums or something.

I have had the privledge to use this book for an introductory course in differential equations with colleages of Dr. Boyce. This book is well written and contains numerous examples and a plethora of problems. However, a student would do well to have a very firm knowledge of calculus and a quick mathematical mind; some of the methods covered are not candy coated to go down easier. As such, it is important that a strong professor and a strong curriculum accompany this book. This is NOT a good book for self-instruction. However, it is a very useful reference to go back to when dealing with more advanced mathematical topics.

In all fairness, my impression of this book actually comes from their 3rd edition, which I used in my first Diff. Eq. (DE) course. However, I remember seeing later versions in various bookstores, only to see little change. I was a good student in math, but grew to hate DE because of this book. It was written in a very complex, dry & boring way, with virtually no graphics, and the examples were never explained enough (i.e. to give you a solid intuitive feel of the subject). Thank God for Schaums Outline to get me through the course. As a practicing engineer, I have found other books, calculators (HP-48GX, TI-92, etc.) and the computer to restore my interest and fascination in DE. I wish Steven Speilberg could do a movie showing how fascinating differential equations really are, because this book sure doesn't.

While the book certainly covers all the material one needs to gain a basic understanding of differential equations, it does not present the information in a particularly clear manner. The writing style does not help to break down the complexity of the subject, and in some cases the notation is a little strange. I have had to read several sections two or three times to grasp the material, even after attending class for the week. My teacher's accent and handwriting don't help matters, so it would be nice if this book were more accessible. I am giving the book three stars because, as frustrating as it can be, overly complex language in math texts seems to be the standard.

I didn't but this book here, but I got a similar one used from local book store ISBN 978-0-470-18533-9 (8th ed, copyright 2008). It came with a the ODE architect CD (version 1.6), which I assume is the same one this book comes with. Mine partially worked (I had to manually install it), except for the multimedia module (ODE Architect MM), which completely DIDN'T work on my Windows Vista 32 bit. It gave a floating point error when it loaded and basically hanged. I did find a thread in the [...] forums about someone having an install problem with ODE Architect using Vista-64, and they recommended using an older Windows version on a virtual machine. So I eventually tried this and did finally get it to work. Here's what I did: (1) Installed Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. (2) Installed Windows 98 SE onto the Virtual PC (smaller install than WinXP). I got an error during install, but rebooted the VM and it finished OK. (3) Installed the MVPC2007 "add-on" onto the Windows 98 SE image (note: this is important, you will still get errors if you don't do this step. This "add-on" is built into MVPC2007, you just have to click the button to install it onto your Win98SE image). (4) Installed ODE Architect from the CD to the Win98SE Virtual image. --- And now I can actually run the multimedia program! It's nice, but perhaps not absolutely necessary if you don't want to go through the work (I just felt I was missing out on something). Hopefully you won't need this info because you get a newer CD which works OK on your OS. I thought I would post the info anyway though, just in case.

Update: Well, I was going through a module today and still got a TB50 error, so it's not completely error proof with this microsoft virtual PC. But I think it is 95% working.

I do not see what all the negative reviews are about. Everything is very clearly explained, the examples are good and simple, and there is an answer to almost every problem in the back of the book. I am not quite sure what more you could ask for in a book about ODE's

The book is filled with abstract theory little of which makes sense to an ODE introductory student. The examples given in the book are rarely similar to the ones found in the problem set. I am currently taking ODE and I feel like I spend more time learning from the internet than from the book. The author takes the simplest topic and makes it sound like neuroscience. If you can avoid buying this book, then do so at all costs. If not, just get the old version for a low price( for the problem sets) and try learning the material from youtube and google.

Pros: Filled with knowledge, well printed on real paper, and in english. Has complex mathematical writing on most of the pages.

Cons: Inedible. Heavy, not easy to lift. Has complex mathematical writing on most of the pages.

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Both the student's solution and the text book has the traditional Wiley's style. Example with a really vague explanation to let the reader puzzle. For a 6th version, this book fills with horrible mistakes. Anyway, this is ok for a school's textbook, I've seen worse.