Customer Reviews

Schaum's Outline of Differential Equations

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is great for getting started or for basic review of information that you may have learned at one time and have since forgotten. However, it falls short in the level of coverage. For example, it doesn't cover power series (solutions about ordinary points and solutions about singular points), and the degree of difficulty of the problems is very low (at least by comparison to those in my differential equation class for which I was using this book as a suppliment).

I purchased this book after I had already taken a class in Differential Equations and several upper level undergraduate physics courses. While I found the easy access to quick explanations and examples useful, I feel that the range of topics was slightly limited and that there did need to be more examples. If I had been studying this subject for the first time, I would not have found this book nearly as useful as the majority of the Schaum's Outlines have proved to be.

This book is a must have if you are taking, or are thinking about taking, a class on differential equations. I am currently taking a graduate course on advanced math and this book has been a tremendous help. Each chapter is well defined, in what it covers, and has the exact information I was looking for each time.

You start off with a little theory and some general rules for each type of solution, then it's right to the examples. To be honest, the examples are why I bought the book. Theory is good, but you have to see the theory in use to be able to apply it to whatever you are doing.

I always have this book by my side when doing problems, or just reviewing my class notes. My only complaint, which is really to stong of a word to use, is the breadth of each subject covered. I did find myself, on occasion, wishing there were more problems, or the theory was a little more in depth. But this in no way detracted from the usefullness of the book. If I really needed more information I would just search for "Schaum" followed by whatever I needed, and buy a new book.

I have reviewed several versions of this work in connection
with taking the course and passing the Engineering In Training
Licensure Examination. Topics; such as, valuation of parameters,
constants of integration, homogeneous and non-homogeneous
solutions, nth order equations, applications of differential
equations, equations in electric circuits and gram mixtures
in organic chemistry are all covered in considerable detail.
This work together with Boyce and DiPrima plus the professor's notes helped me to get an "A" in the course. Differential
Equations is a course requiring considerable practice to master
the various techniques. I spent between 15 minutes and 2 hours
per day depending upon the juncture point in the course.
Obviously, studying for the mid-term and final exam required
more concentrated study. Overall, this book is a gem.
You will need it to handle the various twists and turns
in the subject. It is geared toward the math major or engineering perspective so that the problems vary from simple to complex.
In this course, you cannot let the so-called grass grow
under your feet; otherwise, the pace of the presentation
will bury you in confusing details before long.

If you're a really dedicated student, you want to understand all the theory behind differential equations. However, if you're a slacker like me, you just want to know how to do the problem without really understanding what you're doing. This book does just that. I did not understand the method of Variation of Parameters with my college textbook, but totally got it using Schaum's. The three chapters that were spent on Laplace transforms were also very helpful, essential brushup using partial fractions and learning how to manipulate the inverse Laplace, which was not covered in my college textbook. Everyday applications such as the brine water tank and the spring problems and temperature were also covered in detail here. However, I found that Fourier Series were not covered extensively, and actually found my textbook to be better. Nonetheless, this book is essential and a big time saver when you don't have time. It definitely does not replace a professor, or a college textbook, but will quickly become you're best friend the night before the midterm.

When I took differential equations the college wanted us to buy the textbook for $135 and the solutions manual for $15. They were horrible!! I bought Schaum's Outline of Differential Equations ...and used it instead. (...) Dr. Bronson explains concepts very well and has many detailed solutions to examples. There are also supplementary problems with the answers in the back. I recommend this item to anyone taking differential equations.

Whenever I want to brush up my ODE and PDE skills, I will reach out to this one. It is like instant "stock-up", refresh my memories very fast. Good buy.

I bought this book at the beginning of my first semester of differential equations, and found it very useful. It was a very good resource to back up my text, and explained things a little bit different so you end up getting a better perspective on the different methods and stradagies. In fact, my classmates, after continuously wanting to lood at my book, finally went out and bought there own!

This is a well-written and concise review of ODEs. As a review, it's awesome, and I would highly recommend this for a refresher or a reference for improving your skill level. However, I am not entirely sure it's a sure thing for introductory-level students. In other words, if you want to just pick it up and learn, be aware; it does not derive results in detail as some textbooks do. Nonetheless, it is one of the better Schaum's Outlines.

I like this book a lot more than my Diff. Eq. textbook, mostly because it focuses on application rather than abstraction. Bronson does a good job of explaining the mechanisms and applications of DE, while cutting through most of the kludgy rhetoric and laborious explanations of my course textbook. The examples are straight-forward without too much of a stretch to see how they work, while the explanations are quick and to-the-point.

I would thoroughly recommend buying the Schaum's Easy Outline for DE in addition to this book, since I find the Easy Outline to be easier to pick up quickly on a first read. The Easy Outline is essentially the Outline, boiled down to the bare essentials and re-written to be easier to absorb quickly. The regular outline (this book) does a good job of filling in the gaps and providing more examples on top of the Easy Outilne.

My copy (2nd edition, current) shows an original copyright date of 1973, with another in 1994 to reflect the Library of Congress title update (the title change was minute, and not worth repeating). I was surprised by the extreme similarity between some examples in the Ouline versus those in my course textbook (carrying a 2003 copyright in its 7th edition). It makes you wonder if this is the reference for the textbook writers!

My only criticism of this book is that it is not a textbook. If it were, I wouldn't have to spend four times as much on another book which I use for not much more than the exercises. Oh, and the Outline HAS plenty of problems, both solved and not.