Customer Reviews

Introduction to Applied Mathematics

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I've never written a review before, and probably never will again. But I had to do something to help publicize this fantastic book. I would give it 6 stars if I could....

In short, Strang's book is an elegant masterpiece. As a former college math major and current University science professor who uses computation daily in research, this is the best general "applied math" book I've ever seen. I highly recommend it to every graduate student and postdoc who passes through my lab. It is not a textbook in the usual sense, and is thus very different from Strang's much more widely known linear algebra texts. The level of the book is very mixed; parts are very elementary, and other sections really require advanced graduate background to fully comprehend. The book is "modern" in every sense, full of opinions and marvelous insights, and even very witty in places. As one example, the book completely skips the series solutions to the diffusion equation (about which most "applied math" books drone on for far too many pages) and cuts right to the Gaussian kernel solution. The discussion of Fourier analysis is fresh and excellent. The grouping of many ideas under the umbrella of "approach to equilibrium" and "minimum principles" is a superior organization. There are many other modernisms like these.... too many to count. Just from reading the preface, you can tell that this book was a labor of love for Strang, and it needs to be taken as such. Do not buy this book to cram for an exam -- buy it, and refer back to it often, to really learn modern applied math.

I am very impressed with how useful this book is. It is written mostly in words, not in equations. Most math texts appear to be written so as to show how smart the writer is...making the reader smarter appears to be secondary. This one assumes you know very little, and teaches you a piece at a time, skipping no steps. The examples are very illuminating.

An excellent math methods book for engineers and physicists.

This book links all the engineering formulas and methods you may have seen in basic mechanical or electrical engineering via a simple four node diagram pictured on the cover. It shows that common threads that all continuous and discrete problems share and how they translate into each other. It clearly demonstrates the power of matrix algebra in engineering problem solving.(a point not emphasized enough in linear algebra texts)

chapters 1. symmetric linear systems 2. equilibrium equations 3. equilibrium in the continuous case 4. analytical methods 5. numerical methods 6. initial-value problems 7. network flows and combinatorics 8. optimization

This is the best book I have read on applied mathematics. It simply contains everything you would need to fully understand the theory and application of applied mathematics. The book is well written, while it requires general knowledge of linear algebra and matrix computation. The explanations in the book are very clearly stated and very understandable. Very very good reference for applied math. The material really makes a wonderful grasp on why and how to apply mathematics to some very demanding and complex structures that we deal with in science. Every serious applied math person should have this book on the shelf, it really deserves it.

i've read his linear algebra and its applications, and am refreshed by his choice of materials and elegance without sacrificing the details and proofs. In no way is it an introductory text in anything. Don't be fooled by the "applied" in the title, all the materials are rigorously presented without the sleigh o' hand approach in theoretical treatments engineering books tend to have. it contains a plethora of fascinating and up-to-date topics - relatively so for amateurs like me - such as kalman filtering and combinatorial optimization. a real eye-opener.

Gilbert Strang text is by far one of the best applied math books I have come across. The author connects many different pieces of the puzzle with a common thread. The organization is very unique and the examples very clear with many exercises and solutions. The book provides a framework for applied mathematics . There are also mit opencourseware video lectures, about 60 hours or so that can supplement the text. I have been a full time university math tutor since 1994 and I strongly recommend this text to anyone that wants to master the theory and applications of applied mathematics.

Strang wants to teach you the topic not prove how clever he is. Applied mathematics is about computing results. Strang gives you the theory behind the methods. If you want code, no, if you want to understand the how, yes.

This is a rather quirky book: It deals with a lot of subjects from a personal view of the author who has an obviously enormous mathematical culture, and whizzes us though a great range of topics with rather little time to breathe. Most of the time it's quite clear, but it requires mathematical maturity. I cant see how anyone could learn complex calculus or multivariable calculus from this, if it was their very first time. However if you have seen a lot of this material elsewhere in a patchy way this book is extraordinarily good a giving you a grand unified view.
Don't expect too many proofs, though.
I would complete this with other books and I would read this book only as an advanced undergraduate or more. It could be used to supplement the Wikipedia articles for example.

most of the positive reviews about this book here are given by phd math students or advanced graduate level student. Clearly for undergraduates this book is horrible. nothing is understood. its just RUBBISH.

This is possibly the worst textbook I have ever read. The chapters and discussion of the topics are very long-winded and difficult to understand. You learn by example but this text has almost no examples in it and those that it does have seem to only confuse you more.