Visual Complex Analysis [Paperback]

Tristan Needham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 18, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0198534469 | ISBN-13: 978-0198534464

This radical first course on complex analysis brings a beautiful and powerful subject to life by consistently using geometry (not calculation) as the means of explanation. Aimed at undergraduate students in mathematics, physics, and engineering, the book's intuitive explanations, lack of advanced prerequisites, and consciously user-friendly prose style will help students to master the subject more readily than was previously possible. The key to this is the book's use of new geometric arguments in place of the standard calculational ones. These geometric arguments are communicated with the aid of hundreds of diagrams of a standard seldom encountered in mathematical works. A new approach to a classical topic, this work will be of interest to students in mathematics, physics, and engineering, as well as to professionals in these fields.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Visual Complex Analysis is a delight, and a book after my own heart. By his innovative and exclusive use of the geometrical perspective, Tristan Needham uncovers many surprising and largely unappreciated aspects of the beauty of complex analysis." --Roger Penrose

"Tristan Needham's Visual Complex Analysis will show you the field of complex analysis in a way you almost certainly have not seen before. Drawing on historical sources and adding his own insights, Needham develops the subject from the ground up, drawing us attractive pictures at every step of the way. If you have time for a year course, full of fascinating detours, this is the perfect text; by picking and choosing, you could use it for a variety of shorter courses. I am tempted to hide the book from my own students, in order to appear more clever for popping up with crisp historical anecdotes, great exercises, and pictures that explain things like that mysterious 2*pi that crops up in integrals. Whether you use Visual Complex Analysis as a text, a resource, or entertaining summer reading, I highly recommend it for your bookshelf."--American Mathematical Monthly

"Delivers what its title promises, and more: an engaging, broad, thorough, and often deep, development of undergraduate complex analysis and related areas. . .A truly unusual and notably creative look at a classical subject." --American Mathematical Monthly

"One of the saddest developments in school mathematics has been the downgrading of the visual for the formal. I'm not lamenting the loss of traditional Euclidean geometry, despite its virtues, because it too emphasised stilted formalities. But to replace our rich visual intuition by silly games with 2 x 2 matrices has always seemed to me to be the height of folly. It is therefore a special pleasure to see Tristan Needham's 'Visual Complex Analysis' with its elegantly illustrated visual approach. Yes, he has 2 x 2 matrices--but his are interesting." --New Scientist

"Committed to the exclusive use of geometrical arguments and content to pay the price of 'an initial lack of rigour', he has produced a radically new text. The author writes "as though [he] were explaining the ideas directly to a friend". This informal style is excellently judged and works extremely well."--Mathematical Review

"This is a book in which the author has been willing to make himself available as our teacher. His own voice enters in a rather charming way....I recommend Visual Complex Analysis, as something to read and enjoy, to share with students, and perhaps to inspire other books in which the voice of the author is vividly present to teach and explain."--American Mathematical Monthly

From the Author

The book recently won First Prize in the National Jesuit Book Award Contest for the best mathematics or computer science book published in 1994, 1995, or 1996. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 616 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (February 18, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198534469
• ISBN-13: 978-0198534464
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.3 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #119,378 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

132 of 134 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A fresh and insightful perspective on a beautiful subject November 13, 2001

By mzb

Format:Paperback

Needham's book is a masterpiece which will be appreciated by anyone who already has gained (or is simultaneously gaining) a firm knowledge of the traditional, i.e. more algebraic, approach to complex analysis. In addition to reading it for pleasure, I have used the book extensively in teaching 18.04 Complex Variables with Applications at MIT, not as a required textbook, but rather as inspiration for lectures and homework problems. The book helps me give the students (mostly undergraduates in applied mathematics, science, and engineering) the geometrical insights needed for a deeper understanding of the subject, beyond what is found in various standard texts, such as Churchill and Brown or Saff and Snider (the required textbook for 18.04). As a prelude or companion to Needham's book, however, I would recommend reading one of these other books and working through more straightforward examples of algebra and calculus with complex functions. With that said, Needham's book is a perfect supplement to a first course in complex analysis.

Needham's book is unique in its clear explanation of how the rich properties of analytic functions all follow from the "ampli-twist" concept of complex differentiation. In my class, I use this crucial, geometrical idea from the first mention of the derivative, where it goes hand in hand with the concept of conformal mapping (which is often at the back of introductory texts, but which I think should appear near the beginning). Perhaps the most delighful section of Needham's book is the one where he uses the same ampli-twist concept to give a very intuitive, unified proof of Cauchy's theorem, Morera's theorem, and the fact that a loop integral of the conjugate gives 2i times the area enclosed. The book also contains many clever and challenging problems, which are appropriate to give students to help them "think outside the box", as it were.

The most amazing thing about Needham's book is that it is sure to delight and edify both beginners and experts alike with its simple, geometrical explanations. This is all the more impressive because geometry in mathematics education is more traditionally a vehicle to teach rigorous proofs rather than intuitive understanding.

77 of 79 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A marvel, eye-popping, fun. More than five stars! January 9, 2004

By Paul J. Papanek

Format:Paperback

What a great book this is!

This is a book that any math afficionado must have, and will undoubtedly savor. I frankly don't understand those reviewers who have given this book fewer than five stars. In fact, five stars wouldn't seem to be enough here. This book is among the best math books one will ever find! What else would one want from a such book? It is exciting, friendly, creative, often funny, crystal clear, fresh, deep, and unfailingly courteous to the reader--a quality not always found in math texts.

Additionally, this book succeeds on another level -- it is just plain beautiful. Math, to be great, must be beautiful, while books about great math too often are not. This book is truly beautiful, even artful. The author has taken great care to create beauty here.

I intially bought this book, because as an ex-mathematician whose analysis skills were getting rusty I wanted to revisit complex analysis. This book certainly succeeded in brushing up those old skills, but it also deepened them. The book has marvelous insights and geometric drawings that demonstrate in a clever way the links between complex analysis and other branches of math and physics. How could one not love the lovely and intricate drawings that depict, say, loxodromic transformations on a sphere, or the eye-popping diagrams of rotations in hyperbolic space? They're fabulous! Even the problem sets are delightful.

As a side note, some of the historical glosses about mathematicians are also very lively, and are another source of pleasure here.

On the dust jacket is the blurb--"If you must buy only one math book this year, this is the one to buy." I have to agree. I bought a couple dozen math books last year, and this one outshines the rest. I can't recommend it highly enough, even if you already feel comfortable with complex analysis.

I encourage my fellow readers to pick this up, and see how beautiful a math book can be.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Tremendously Insightful Presentation of Complex Analysis June 14, 2000

By Eze

Format:Paperback

Although mathematical visualization has not been as implicitly forbidden in modern mathematics as claimed by Needham, his work is nonetheless highly innovative even besides his wonderful graphs. The reason is that his prose accompanies very well his extraordinary insight and intuition for the subject. It is purposely not extremely rigorous in order to make the presentation smoother. (This is not so bad as many think. Complex analysis is the target of many excellent books which, fortunately, do not all take the same approach. For more rigor see Ahlfors' "Complex Analysis.")

This book can therefore be an ideal way to get started with complex analysis or even to further one's understanding in the subject. If you are looking for a very affordable predecessor with a similar intuitive style, check Flanigan's "Complex Variables."