Customer Reviews

Mathematical Methods for Physics and Engineering: A Comprehensive Guide

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As a physicist I'm constantly scrambling to my bookcases to look something up. This text sits at the top of my shelves and is used more often than any other. I give it 5 stars as a reference text, however I cannot really rate it as a 'learning' mathematical methods text (maybe 3 stars?) since most of the methods are familiar to me.

If you really want to learn mathematical physics this is the book own. The authors cover a wide range of mathematical topics, explaining all those ideas you always wished other books would. The authors include chapters on: ODE's, PDE's, Fourier series and transforms, matrices and vector spaces, probability, and group theory, as well as solid background material. Sadly, my mathematical physics eduacations was based on "Mathematical methods of physicists" by Arfken and Weber, which is a terrible book, at best. In short, if you can buy only one book on mathematical physics this is it!!

This is about as good as it gets in a single source reference for the basic mathematics of physics and engineering. The text does assume that the reader has a solid math foundation, but many covered subjects not previously learned (or faded into the dim mist) can be learned or refreshed readily from the text. What is especially nice about this book is the absolute minimalist way that the authors get right to every point. It does not happen often enough in a mathematics text. Just about every essential topic is included; calculus review, differential equations, probability, tensors, series, laplace transforms, eigenfunctions, and on and on - all in the same lucid style. It would have been nice. however, if this book of nearly everything had added a brief appendix of basics, like logarithm identites and other low level algebra and trigonometry fundamentals. It should also be clearly noted that this is not a discipline specific text - the transient function for an RC circuit is not here. This is a math text. That said, if I could have only one math reference text, this would easily be it.

If you are a mathematics major interested in rigorous proofs and theorems then DO NOT buy this book. If you are an engineering or physics student and are mostly concerned with learning to solve problems encountered in class then this is THE book for you. From eigenvalues to tensors, from differential equations to probability, this book has the essential information and many worked examples demonstrating the mathematical applications seen in most undergrad and graduate level engineering and physics courses. Few advanced engineering math texts cover the breadth of topics that this one does. The mix of hints and solutions at the end of the chapters is a helpful touch.

I've bought this book to learn the mathematics I need for physics. I'm a high school student (currently, but I plan to study physics). I'm interested in physics and learn it on my own. This book has help understand (and solve) mathematics needed for physics. I used it to learn mathematics, now I use it for reference. A great book.

This book basically focuses on formulas, a little proof is done. The authors (there r 3 of them) make the text very concisely well written. However I don't recommend this book to anyone that wishes to really "learn" something from it. Most of the book is concentrated on equations.

This is my favorite math methods reference book, much better than Boas.

This book is impossible. It does not teach math at all; after it barely touches on the foundations, it went on to solve extremely advanced problems, so that it encourages the reader to imitate rather than to learn. The foundations are taught in a manner so hard to swallow and so brief, it's like as if it's just a review. Indeed, this is a reference book.

This is NOT a mathematical book. It looks like a bad's students cheat-sheet. I don't know how they can learn math in England from this? Especially, when their undergraduate studies are only 3 years (actually, 3 x 8months < 3years). Conclusion: do not study in England.