Customer Reviews

A Survey of Minimal Surfaces

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Osserman's survey is both an excellent starting point for beginners and a reference for some interesting problems in the subject (although it was written some years ago!). Weiesrtrass' classical representation of minimal surfaces, their topology...how can all these be in such a small book?

In my experience accessibility and understandability have to balance theorem proving.
This book is well on it's way to becoming a modern classic even if it is somewhat dated
in it's material. Robert Osserman is recognized as a great teacher of mathematics
by many in the mathematics community. But his approach has come between
the seeker of knowledge and his goal of understanding and mastery of the subject.
It is not his fault as in a peer review he would be generally
rewarded for his approach as he has been in his paper
publishing. But I can see grad students rushing to resell this book
as it has a limited amount of useful reference information
and very few of the actual definitions of the curves talked about.
The references are classic and many of the people are dead or retired by now.
It is access to the actual formulations for the minimal surfaces and explanations that
help in understanding the material not by theorem proving ,
but by visualization and explanation that are needed.
In that: this book fails. But compared to many other such mathematics books , it is actually superior!