Exploratory Examples for Real Analysis (Classroom Resource Materials) [Paperback]

Joanne Snow (Author), Kirk Weller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 14, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0883857340 | ISBN-13: 978-0883857342

Contains supplementary exercises and projects designed to facilitate students' understanding of the fundamental concepts in real analysis, a subject notoriously hard for beginners. The exercises can be used in a number of ways: to motivate a lecture; to serve as a basis for in-class activities; in lab sessions where students work in small groups and submit reports of their investigations. For the last of these, programs in Maple are supplied with further ancillary material available via from http://www.saintmarys.edu/~jsnow/maplets.html.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

Supplementary exercises and projects designed to facilitate students' understanding of the fundamental concepts in real analysis. They can be used to motivate a lecture; as a basis for in-class activities; in lab sessions. Programs in Maple are supplied with further ancillary material available from http://www.saintmarys.edu/~jsnow/maplets.html.

About the Author

Joanne Snow is currently Professor of Mathematics at Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana. She has been on the faculty there since 1983. She received her B. A. degree in Mathematics from Loyola College, Baltimore, Maryland and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mathematics from the University of Notre Dame.

Kirk Weller is currently Associate Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of North Texas. He received his B.A. degree in Mathematics from Hope College and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mathematics from the University of Notre Dame.

Product Details

• Paperback: 158 pages
• Publisher: The Mathematical Association of America (October 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0883857340
• ISBN-13: 978-0883857342
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,379,058 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good exercises demonstrating epsilon-delta concepts, February 18, 2004

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Exploratory Examples for Real Analysis (Classroom Resource Materials) (Paperback)

If there is a single concept that separates the successful math major from the math student, it is the ability to understand epsilon-delta proofs. First encountered in calculus, I have received more negative student feedback about what they mean than any other topic and it only gets worse when students move on to real analysis. Therefore, math teachers are always on the lookout for good exercises that can be used to clarify the meaning of those elusive epsilons and deltas.
The authors present twelve exercises that illustrate fundamental concepts of real analysis. The topics covered are boundedness, supremum/infimum, sequences, continuity, limits, limit suprema/infima and pointwise and uniform convergence. Numeric computations using Maple are frequently used with small values for å to demonstrate the trends of the expressions, as visual guide exercises for eight of the labs are included at the end. These labs are very helpful in giving the students visual demonstrations of the behavior of the formulas.
Many of the exercises involve computations designed to be performed on a calculator. There are also many tables where the students are expected to fill in the remaining entries. I found this workbook style to be a very sound approach to the teaching of real analysis and couldn't help but try a few of the problems.
Designed to be a supplement for a first course in real analysis, this book presents a set of problem solving strategies and problems to try them on that will help teach students what real analysis is all about. I definitely recommend that all teachers of calculus and real analysis look it over thoroughly before they teach these subjects the next time.

Published in the recreational mathematics e-mail newsletter, reprinted with permission.