Customer Reviews

An Introduction to the Calculus of Variations

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Thorough, concise, enjoyable and CHEAP book on the Calculus of variations. One of the few mathematics books that is simultaneously rigorous and entertaining. Illustrated with many examples and applications, drawn from physics and engineering. The proofs are brisk, though there is enough there to guide you on your way to complete understanding. A DEFINITE read for any mathematician or scientist!

Good books on the calculus of variations are not thick on the ground, and this one is pretty good. It is organised around explicating Hamiltonian mechanics, but with mathematical rigor and clarity. Why not 5 stars then? Some proofs skip a lot of steps. There are not a lot of examples. The typesetting is from 509 years ago, with equations and so on in the text not on a separate line. There are few diagrams.

If your interest is in physics this is a FAR better book to choose than Sagan.

This is a very good introductory text to the calculus of variations. I have also read similar texts by J. Gregory, C. Lin and by M. Denn, and I prefer this book. I am not a mathematician and I find this treatment more accessible than Denn, but more rigorous than Gregory & Lin. Previous reviews have noted that the author is not as explicit as he could be in all of the proofs and I concur, but as a result I find the level of rigor to be ideal for an introductory text. To disagree with a previous review I find the typesetting to be good and there are plenty of figures.