Customer Reviews

Handbook of Mathematics and Computational Science

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This handbook covers a range of undergraduate applied mathematics. Besides standard topics: geometry, indefinite and definite integrals, linear algebra, complex variables, etc.; it also covers some discrete math: Boolean algebra as applied to digital circuit design, graphs, etc.; and a bit of programming (including written-out programs implementing some algorithms). But its coverage is just too idiosyncratic to rely on. Its treatment of digital logic is surprisingly long, and its treatment of matrices surprisingly short. Why does it mention the rather specialized topics of fuzzy logic and neural networks? Why doesn't it mention wavelets? Why doesn't it include any material and algorithms on strings (regular expression matching, for example)?

But the worst feature of this book is that it doesn't provide bibliographies for the topic it covers. If you need more detailed treatment of matrices or graphs, where should you go for a fuller treatment? It doesn't help at all.

As an engineer I had a formal education in Math, at least in analysis and calculus. That was twenty + years ago, and now that my kids are entering high school I am a little rusted. I found this book to be the answer to many problems. It will not give you demonstrations or explanations but it has the concepts that you need to find the solution of your problem. Case in point. I am currently designing a model airplane. The fuselage sections are composed of a rectangle and a semi ellipse. To find out the shape of the cover on the elliptic part I needed to know the perimeter of an ellipse. I didn't recall the formula, and I found the answer in this book (actually an approximate formula, as there is no analytical solution). This is a must for science or engineering students, and for rusted parents as myself!

If you're a practicing computer programmer / software developer, you'll probably find this replaces half a dozen old math textbooks on your shelf. And with its extensive breadth, it's sure to cover numerous areas for which you have no references, at all. I've found it to be very clearly written, though quite concise. The density of information is even more impressive, when you consider that it's over 1000 pages!

It's extremely useful, when you just need a quick refresher on some topic or to dig up a common formula. That said, it is a handbook, so it doesn't have a great deal of depth. Obviously, it's not going to be everything to everyone - yet that doesn't mean it won't be quite useful to most!

In summary, I'd say the price makes it a no-brainer. If you're a professional, it will pay for itself very quickly. If not, it still may save you quite a bit of time and frustration, and beats searching the web for answers, almost every time. Over the years, I've continued to marvel at this gem so much that I knew I'd eventually have to write this review!

The best way I can describe this book is that it is as close to a swiss army knife you are going to find in a mathematics book. It has everything from high school math to math for advanced undergraduates and possibly early graduate school in engineering, physical sciences, economics, and mathematics. It also has a few helpful sections on programming in Fortran, C, Pascal, and C++ (although I wouldn't rely on this book to learn those languages). It is a great reference book for scientists and engineers.

I was still in High School when I bought this book. I thought it could help me somehow with my finals, but I mostly bought it cause after skim reading it in the bookstore, I knew I was gonna need it later on. Surprisingly, it did help on my finals as well. Most of the theory we had to study (apart from proofs of course) was concentrated in a few pages each, so it was easy for me to learn the stuff I really had to remember from there! Later in the summer I read it more carefully, and saw that it was indeed gonna be a big help for my later-on college years! It's condensed, thorough, thus making a great reference guide for everything a college/university student (to give an example) will need!

Harris and Stocker's Handbook of Mathematics and Computational Science is a reference book that many readers learning or reviewing calculus would appreciate. It is not a dictionary or encyclopedia of mathematics, nor any other sort of collection of articles, but rather a vast compendium of descriptions and formulas from the non-theory portion of the undergraduate mathematics curriculum. The information is sometimes quite compressed. Although chapter two does list the axioms for a group, a ring, a field, and a vector space, there are no further references to these subjects. The focus of the handbook is non-theoretical. A listing of the chapter titles will help clarify this.

1. Numerical computation (arithmetic and numerics) .. 1
2. Equations and inequalities (algebra) .. 37
3. Geometry and trigonometry in the plane .. 59
4. Solid geometry .. 95
5. Functions .. 117
6. Vector analysis .. 331
7. Coordinate systems .. 349
8. Analytic geometry .. 377
9. Matrices, determinants, and systems of linear equations ..409
10. Boolean algebra-application in switching algebra .. 467
11. Graphs and algorithms ..483
12. Differential calculus .. 489
13. Differential geometry .. 517
14. Infinite series .. 531
15. Integral calculus ..547
16. Vector analysis .. 591
17. Complex variables and functions .. 613
18. Differential equations .. 647
19. Fourier transformation .. 691
20. Laplace and z transformations .. 735
21. Probability theory and mathematical statistics .. 773
22. Fuzzy logic .. 847
23. Neural networks .. 871
24. Computers .. 883
25. Table of Integrals .. 951
Index .. 999

I use this book a lot when I forget those little bits of mathematical wonder that are necessary in only the most obscure of my physics problems, and for that it has been well worth the money. However, I haven't used, and really don't intend to use, any of the text on fuzzy logic and...is there actually FORTRAN programming in here? Wow...

If you are a professional programmer, this handbook can be useful for its coverage of maths used in computing. The emphasis is on discrete maths. With long discussions on Boolean logic and graph theory. The book could be compared to Knuth's Art of Computer Programming or with Numerical Recipes. Not as advanced as the former, but more indepth than the latter in some aspects.

The book gives a nice explanation of neural networks and fuzzy sets. These are important ideas that programmers should be acquainted with. In earlier years, they were more like pure research topics. But their success has led to increasing usage in computing, so it is good to understand them.

For me, an undergraduate student, i needed a book that mixed all together the maths contents i studied all over the years in High school, and general knowledge about everything.

Not basic, but not for experts. A general guide to the basics for ingeneers. I study computer graphics and computer sciece, and this book was very useful. I was bored of searching on the net everytime for the most basic issues.

Handbook of Mathematics and Computational Science
This is a good book and it can be used in conjunction with Handbook of mathematical functions (by M. Abramowitz and I. Stegun)