Multivariable Calculus: Concepts and Contexts (with Tools for Enriching Calculus, Interactive Video Skillbuilder CD-ROM, and iLrn Homework/Personal Tutor) [Hardcover]

James Stewart (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0534410049 | ISBN-13: 978-0534410049 | Publication Date: November 4, 2004 | Edition: 3

Stewart's MULTIVARIABLE CALCULUS: CONCEPTS AND CONTEXTS, THIRD EDITION offers a streamlined approach to teaching calculus, focusing on major concepts and supporting those with precise definitions, patient explanations, and carefully graded problems. MULTIVARIABLE CALCULUS: CONCEPTS AND CONTEXTS is highly regarded because it has successfully brought peace to departments that were split between reform and traditional approaches to teaching calculus. Not only does the text help reconcile the two schools of thought by skillfully merging the best of traditional calculus with the best of the reform movement, it does so with innovation and meticulous accuracy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I have appreciated two main things from this textbook. The first is the concise language that Stewart uses. It makes my job much easier. I can embellish, add, emphasize or not easily. The second item is the paring down of the calculus material to an amount that…allows me enough room to add the various exploratory activities that I have my classes use."

"The single feature of this book that I like the most is the breadth in the exercises."

"Stewart does a good job in extracting the best parts from calculus reform efforts and traditional approaches. The book is well organized, the material is clearly presented, and there is an abundance of problems of varying levels. The problems are the right type to engage students in thinking about the concepts and to develop skills and ability to apply the calculus…. The organization and presentation is designed to develop perspective, conceptual understanding and ability to use the concepts and methods to actually solve problems." "I like the author's approach very much…it combines the best features of both [the traditional and the reform approaches], making it possible to present a better course. Stewart's approach contains the most important aspects of that [reform] approach--rule of four, use of projects, use of technology, focus on topics of value to clients, development of conceptual understanding over formalism, writing." "The text is well-informed about the use of calculus and makes good use of realistic settings, not just artificially manufactured information."

"I want a text that stresses the numerical and graphical as well as the algebraic approach to calculus. But I also want a calculus text that still has a solid rigorous foundation, and the Stewart book provides both."

"Among the strengths of this text are the clear writing styles of the author, the use of color and diagrams throughout the book, the excellent organization of the book, the superb set of ancillaries both for the student and the instructor, and the excellent homework exercises."

About the Author

James Stewart received his M.S. from Stanford University and his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. He did research at the University of London and was influenced by the famous mathematician George Polya at Stanford. Stewart is currently a Professor of Mathematics at McMaster University. His research field is harmonic analysis. James Stewart is the author of a best-selling calculus textbook series published by Brooks/Cole, including CALCULUS, Fifth Edition and CALCULUS: EARLY TRANSCENDENTALS, Fifth Edition, as well as a series of precalculus texts.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: Brooks Cole; 3 edition (November 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0534410049
• ISBN-13: 978-0534410049
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #530,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James Stewart received the M.S. degree from Stanford University and the Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. After two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of London, he became Professor of Mathematics at McMaster University. His research has been in harmonic analysis and functional analysis. Stewart's books include a series of high school textbooks as well as a best-selling series of calculus textbooks. He is also co-author, with Lothar Redlin and Saleem Watson, of a series of college algebra and precalculus textbooks. Translations of his books include those in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Korean, Chinese, Greek, and Indonesian.

A talented violinst, Stewart was concertmaster of the McMaster Symphony Orchestra for many years and played professionally in the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. Having explored connections between music and mathematics, Stewart has given more than 20 talks worldwide on Mathematics and Music and is planning to write a book that attempts to explain why mathematicians tend to be musical.

Stewart was named a Fellow of the Fields Institute in 2002 and was awarded an honorary D.Sc. in 2003 by McMaster University. The library of the Fields Institute is named after him. The James Stewart Mathematics Centre was opened in October, 2003, at McMaster University.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent and interesting, June 20, 2003

By 

Randy Ringstad (Reno, Nevada USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Multivariable Calculus: Concepts and Contexts (Hardcover)

This textbook is the best of its kind, in my opinion. Stewart presents difficult concepts in the clearest possible way. Fully-explained examples, excellent graphics, and interesting presentations. After each section, you are left feeling that you've learned an exciting new concept. I fully enjoyed the subject. I would have given it five stars, but I did have a little difficulty with the chapter on Power Series. Other than that, I thought the book was perfect.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent textbook but ..., January 27, 2005

By 

D. Harp "Goofus McToofus" (Tweedlebury) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Multivariable Calculus: Concepts and Contexts (with CD-ROM, BCA Tutorial and InfoTrac) (Hardcover)

This really is an excellent presentation of multivarible calculus! The "but..." in the review title relates to two facts:

1. I bought the book new for $45 only a few weeks ago through Amazon and
2. The book is actually the last six chapters of Stewart's larger "Calculus : Concepts and Contexts" (2nd edition, I think - the one going for around $139). So, if you're hell-bent on buying this book at the $100 plus price, you'd be better of just getting the full version. More bang for your buck!

Anyway, I have quite a few calculus texbooks at various levels of sophistication and this one is quickly stealing my heart. I'm finding that Stewart's manner of presentation and the chosen examples, problems, solutions, and graphics, are all well designed toward the end that students actually understand the beautiful "concepts and context" that form the soul of this magnificent subject. For what it's worth, I've found it fairly easy to take this book's material and plug it into Mathematica to play and poke and mess around in order to get an even more intimate and graphical feel for it (though no Mathematica notebooks are actually provided with this textbook). A solutions manual by Don Clagg is available here at Amazon (which I haven't recieved yet) and there's also available a LabCalc series of resources for various math programs such as Mathematica and Maple that are built specifically for this textbook.

OK - have fun, but don't fork out $133 or whatever it currently costs. I think maybe someone at Amazon or the publisher screwed up with the new pricing.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Intro to Multivariable..., May 10, 2004

By 

Iason "itys" (Cambridge , MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Multivariable Calculus: Concepts and Contexts (Hardcover)

This is one of the best introductory texts in multivariable calculus that I have seen in a long time. It was a required text and essentially, if you have this book, it is unnecessary to even go to class. All of the examples are clear and concise and combined with the excellent study guide, one can easily learn multivariable calculus from this book without even taking a course.