All the Mathematics You Missed But Need to Know for Graduate School (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Lori Pedersen (Illustrator)
Key Phrases: divergence theorem, elliptic axiom, hyperbolic axiom, Axiom of Choice, Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, Central Limit Theorem (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book will fill an interesting niche in a library collection...it should be used by browsing students interested in making sure that they are prepared for success in their graduate programs." Choice

"All the Mathematics You Missed...is a help for students going on to graduate school..Since many students beginning graduate school do not have the mathematical knowledge needed, All the Mathematics You Missed aims to fill in the gaps." Berkshire Eagle, Pittsfield, MA

"From the preface: 'The goal of this book is to give people at least a rough idea of many topics that beginning graduate students at the best graduate schools are assumed to know." Mathematical Reviews

"The writing is lucid mathematical exposition, at a level quite appropriate to beginning graduate students." The American Statistician

"Before classes began, I jump started my graduate career with the help of this book. Even though I didn't believe that I could have missed much math, it became clear that my belief was wrong during the first week of class. While proving a theorem, my professor asked if anyone remembered a previous result from calculus. While I did not remember it from my days as an undergraduate, I had read about the theorem and had even seen a sketch of the proof in Garrity's book...This will be one of the books that I keep with me as I continue as a graduate student. It has certainly helped me understand concepts that I have missed."
Elizabeth D. Russell, Math Horizons

"Point set topology, complex analysis, differential forms, the curvature of surfaces, the axiom of choice, Lebesgue integration, Fourier analysis, algorithms, and differential equations.... I found these sections to be the high points of the book. They were a sound introduction to material that some but not all graduate students will need."
Charles Ashbacher, School Science and Mathematics

Product Description

Few beginning graduate students in mathematics and other quantitative subjects possess the daunting breadth of mathematical knowledge expected of them when they begin their studies. This book will offer students a broad outline of essential mathematics and will help to fill in the gaps in their knowledge. The author explains the basic points and a few key results of all the most important undergraduate topics in mathematics, emphasizing the intuitions behind the subject. The topics include linear algebra, vector calculus, differential and analytical geometry, real analysis, point-set topology, probability, complex analysis, set theory, algorithms, and more. An annotated bibliography offers a guide to further reading and to more rigorous foundations.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (January 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521792851
• ISBN-13: 978-0521792851
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,006,506 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Tool for Diligent Self-Study, January 19, 2003

By	Jason (Illinios) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All the Mathematics You Missed: But Need to Know for Graduate School (Paperback)

There's no doubt about it -- this book designed for people who want to learn some real math. It doesn't take, as the title and description might lead you to believe, a "Math for Engineers" approach.

Each chapter covers, in the span of 10 or 15 pages, what would normally be an entire semester's worth of material, and as a result, is quite dense -- there are alot of ideas crammed onto each page. But unlike traditional advanced math books (which are notoriously dense) the focus is more on developing intuitions than on long strings of equations.

An important strength is that every chapter ends with suggestions on textbooks in that chapter's subject. This turns out to be quite helpful, since one can't reasonably expect to learn everything important about any of these subjects from a brief chapter in any book.

I can envision three main ways in which this book might be useful: First, in combination with one or more of the books in listed in the bibliography for learning a new subject. Second, on its own for review of topics you've seen before. Third, as a reference for "basic" definitions and theorems, as in: "What's a Hilbert space again?"

Overall, this will be a good book to have around, but not a substitute for real study.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Uniquely Informative, November 8, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: All the Mathematics You Missed: But Need to Know for Graduate School (Paperback)

I used this book for an opposite purpose to the one the author intended. For me it served to review all the math I *had* learned long ago in school (both undergraduate and graduate), but was starting to forget. The author's informal style and rapid-fire delivery were just right for these topics. The subjects I had truly missed, mainly the more abstract parts of algebra and geometry, I found difficult to follow, though I did come away with some feeling for them. This is not a perfect book. The informal style extends to numerous typos in equations, and modern computer-oriented approaches get short shrift. Nevertheless, I found it a unique resource and a pleasure to read.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good for a recap, bad for anything more, January 27, 2004

By	Paul "krasnoludek" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: All the Mathematics You Missed: But Need to Know for Graduate School (Paperback)

This book has a very particular purpose: to recap some basic concepts from undergraduate mathematics so that you get the "big picture". In other words, for every math course you took as an undergrad, this book provides a good outline of the major ideas and how they fit together. But, it is only an outline; nothing more. If you actually missed out on some topic, or your knowledge of a subject is shaky, then this book won't help much. It will only help by providing a bibliography of some other references for that subject.

This book is meant to organize your undergraduate math knowledge, not to supplement it.

With that said, I'll mention a few words about the content of the book. It is quite well written and definitely extracts the essential ideas for your quick consumption. There are a few topics that I personally feel are missing, such as Gram-Schmidt and Jordan Canonical Forms for Linear Algebra, and UFDs and PIDs from Algebra. In general, it seemed like the book leaned a little more towards analysis than algebra, but the vast majority of important topics were indeed encapsulated in their synopsis.

Good for a very specific audience, but otherwise not wonderfully useful.