A First Course in Calculus (Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics) [Hardcover]

Serge Lang (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0387962018 | ISBN-13: 978-0387962016 | Publication Date: January 15, 1986 | Edition: 5th

This fifth edition of Lang's book covers all the topics traditionally taught in the first-year calculus sequence. Divided into five parts, each section of A FIRST COURSE IN CALCULUS contains examples and applications relating to the topic covered. In addition, the rear of the book contains detailed solutions to a large number of the exercises, allowing them to be used as worked-out examples -- one of the main improvements over previous editions.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 727 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 5th edition (January 15, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0387962018
• ISBN-13: 978-0387962016
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #552,064 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars simple, but not unsophisticated, April 12, 2005

By 

B. Jacobs - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A First Course in Calculus (Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics) (Hardcover)

As a high school teacher, I used this text with great success several times for both AP Calculus BC and AP Calculus AB courses. It is my favorite calculus text to teach from, because it is very user-friendly and the material is presented in such an eloquent way. There are no gratuitous color pictures of people parachuting out of airplanes here. Opening this book is like entering a temple: all is quiet and serene. Epsilon-delta is banished to an appendix, where (in my opinion) it belongs, but all of the proofs are there, and they're presented in a simple (but not unsophisticated) way, with a minimum of unnecessary jargon or obtuse notation. He doesn't belabor the concept of "limit"; most calculus books beat this intuitively obvious concept into the ground. Even though it doesn't cover all of the topics on the AP syllabus, I would rather supplement and use this text rather than any other.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Effectively conveys key concepts and skills., July 31, 2008

By 

N. F. Taussig (Bronx, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A First Course in Calculus (Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics) (Hardcover)

Serge Lang's text does an effective job of teaching you the skills you need to solve challenging calculus problems, while teaching you to think mathematically. The text is principally concerned with how to solve calculus problems. Key concepts are explained clearly. Methods of solution are effectively demonstrated through examples. The challenging exercises reinforce the concepts, while enabling you to develop the skills required to solve hard problems. Answers to the majority of exercises (not just the odd-numbered ones) are provided in a hundred page appendix, making this text suitable for self-study. In some sections, such as related rates and max-min problems, Lang provides many fully worked out solutions.

As effectively as Lang conveys the key concepts and teaches you how to solve problems, he does not neglect the subject's logical development. Topics are introduced only after their logical foundations have been laid. Results are derived. Theorems are proved when Lang feels that they will add to the reader's understanding. Through his exposition and his grouping of logically related exercises, Lang teaches the reader how a mathematician thinks about the subject.

The book is divided into five sections: review of basic material, differentiation and elementary functions, integration, Taylor's formula and series, and functions of several variables. The heart of the course is the middle three sections.

Most of the topics covered in the review of basic material should be familiar to most readers. However, it is still worth reading since there are challenging problems, properties of the absolute value function are derived from defining the absolute of a number as the square root of the square of the number, conic sections and dilations may be unfamiliar to some readers, and Lang views the material through the prism of a mathematician who knows what concepts are important for understanding higher mathematics.

Lang introduces the derivative as the slope of a curve in order to motivate the introduction of the idea of a limit. Next, Lang teaches you techniques of differentiation and shows you how to use them solve applications such as related rate problems. After a detailed discussion of the sine and cosine functions, Lang introduces the Mean Value Theorem and illustrates how it can be used for curve sketching and solving for maxima or minima. Lang covers properties of inverse functions before concluding the section by defining the natural logarithm of x as the area under the curve y = 1/x between 1 and x and defining the exponential function f(x) = e^x as its inverse.

The integral is introduced as the area under a curve, with the natural logarithm taken as the motivating example. Lang explains the relationship between integration and differentiation before introducing techniques of integration and their applications. Integration with respect to polar and parametric coordinates is introduced to expand the range of applications. The exercises introduce additional tricks that enable you to solve integrals that do not succumb to the basic techniques. A table of integrals is included on the inside of the book's front and back covers.

Lang's demonstrates the power of differential and integral calculus through his discussion of approximation of functions through their Taylor polynomials. This chapter should also give you an idea of how your calculator calculates square roots and the values of trigonometric, exponential, and logarithmic functions. The behavior of series, including convergence and divergence tests, concludes the material on single variable calculus.

The material on functions of several variables in the final section of the book is covered in somewhat greater detail in Lang's Calculus of Several Variables (Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics). Since the corresponding chapters in that text include additional sections on the cross product, repeated partial derivatives, and further techniques in partial differentiation and an expanded section on functions depending only on their distance from the origin, I chose to read these chapters in Lang's multi-variable calculus text. The material that is included here, on vectors, differentiation of vectors, and partial differentiation, should give the reader a solid foundation for a course in multi-variable calculus.

I have some caveats. There are numerous errors, including some in the answer key. Some terminology is nonstandard, notably the use of bending up (down) for concave up (down), or missing, limiting the text's usefulness as a reference. In the chapter on Taylor polynomials, when Lang requests an answer accurate to n decimal places, what he really means is that the error in the answer should be less than 1/10^n, which is not the same thing. At one point, Lang claims that the Extreme Value Theorem, which he leaves unnamed, is obvious. I turned to the more rigorous texts Calculus, Vol. 1: One-Variable Calculus with an Introduction to Linear Algebra (Second Edition) by Tom M. Apostol and Calculus by Michael Spivak, where I discovered proofs covering one and half pages of text of the Extreme Value Theorem and a preliminary result on which it depends that Lang does not state until an appendix much later in the book. Perhaps Lang meant the Extreme Value Theorem is intuitive. While I found much of the text to be clear, I sometimes found myself turning to Apostol's text for clarification when I read Lang's proofs.

Despite my reservations, I think this text is well worth reading. Reading the text and working through the exercises gives you a good understanding of the key concepts and techniques in calculus, enables you to develop strong problem solving skills, prepares you well for more advanced mathematics courses, and gives you a sense of how mathematicians think about the subject.

26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Calculus for beginning college students, August 28, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: A First Course in Calculus (Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics) (Hardcover)

I needed to bring my high school calculus up to speed for first year physics studies and found this to be the only book which covered the necessary ground. The material is presented in a thorough manner with the great majority of topics shown with proofs. The book is very well organized and there are abundant worked examples. Some problems are offered which deal with matters not covered in the text, but usually there is a worked example given among the answers. Lang deals with the material in a clear fashion so that the subject matter is usually not difficult to follow.On the negative side I can say that there is no human touch between the covers. His sole attempt at humor is an item following a list of problems in which he notes "relax". In the foreword he exhibits his firm belief that many freshmen arrive unprepared for college calculus, which may be true. But nowhere in the book is there a note of encouragement, so it cannot be described as reader friendly. Finally the index is pathetic--just three pages for a book of 624 pages, so that finding things can be frustrating.