Deliver to Canada
Similar items shipping to Canada
CA
Canada
See All Buying Options
Added to

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

List unavailable.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Andrew Pressley
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Elementary Differential Geometry (Springer Undergraduate Mathematics Series) 2nd ed. 2010 Edition

by A.N. Pressley (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 78 ratings
See all formats and editions

Elementary Differential Geometry presents the main results in the differential geometry of curves and surfaces suitable for a first course on the subject. Prerequisites are kept to an absolute minimum – nothing beyond first courses in linear algebra and multivariable calculus – and the most direct and straightforward approach is used throughout.

New features of this revised and expanded second edition include:

    a chapter on non-Euclidean geometry, a subject that is of great importance in the history of mathematics and crucial in many modern developments. The main results can be reached easily and quickly by making use of the results and techniques developed earlier in the book.

    • Coverage of topics such as: parallel transport and its applications; map colouring; holonomy and Gaussian curvature.
    • Around 200 additional exercises, and a full solutions manual for instructors, available via www.springer.com
    ul
    Previous slide of product details
    1. ISBN-10
      184882890X
    2. ISBN-13
      978-1848828902
    3. Edition
      2nd ed. 2010
    4. Publication date
      March 18, 2010
    5. Part of series
      Springer Undergraduate Mathematics Series
    6. Language
      English
    7. Dimensions
      6.1 x 1.1 x 9.25 inches
    8. Print length
      486 pages
    9. See all details
    Next slide of product details

    Editorial Reviews

    Review

    . Gouvêa, The Mathematical Association of America, May, 2010)

    From the Back Cover

    Curves and surfaces are objects that everyone can see, and many of the questions that can be asked about them are natural and easily understood. Differential geometry is concerned with the precise mathematical formulation of some of these questions. It is a subject that contains some of the most beautiful and profound results in mathematics yet many of these are accessible to higher-level undergraduates.

    Elementary Differential Geometry presents the main results in the differential geometry of curves and surfaces suitable for a first course on the subject. Prerequisites are kept to an absolute minimum – nothing beyond first courses in linear algebra and multivariable calculus – and the most direct and straightforward approach is used throughout.

    New features of this revised and expanded second edition include:

      • a chapter on non-Euclidean geometry, a subject that is of great importance in the history of mathematics and crucial in many modern developments. The main results can be reached easily and quickly by making use of the results and techniques developed earlier in the book.

      • Coverage of topics such as: parallel transport and its applications; map colouring; holonomy and Gaussian curvature.
      • Around 200 additional exercises, and a full solutions manual for instructors, available via www.springer.com

      Praise for the first edition:

      "The text is nicely illustrated, the definitions are well-motivated and the proofs are particularly well-written and student-friendly…this book would make an excellent text for an undergraduate course, but could also well be used for a reading course, or simply read for pleasure."

      Australian Mathematical Society Gazette

      "Excellent figures supplement a good account, sprinkled with illustrative examples."

      Times Higher Education Supplement

      Product details

      • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Springer; 2nd ed. 2010 edition (March 18, 2010)
      • Language ‏ : ‎ English
      • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 486 pages
      • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 184882890X
      • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1848828902
      • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 pounds
      • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.1 x 1.1 x 9.25 inches
      • Customer Reviews:
        4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 78 ratings

      About the author

      Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
      Andrew Pressley

      Andrew Pressley

      Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
      Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

      Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

      Customer reviews

      4.3 out of 5 stars
      4.3 out of 5
      78 global ratings

      Top reviews from the United States

      Bruce Gould
      5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Book
      Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2014
      Verified Purchase
      I'm only reading sections of this book for the purpose of understanding some half-baked math in a physics book, but I can say that this is simply a lovely book: the proofs are clear, the diagrams are copious, and the book contains the worked solutions to hundreds of problems - it's excellent for self study. It's also a nice demonstration of what can be done using just some advanced calculus - this book is suitable for anyone with two years of calc/linear algebra.

      The book DOES say clearly in the introduction what it's scope is: mostly differential geometry in low dimensions and with methods that do NOT generalize to higher dimensions - so if you're looking for something else this isn't the book you want.
      11 people found this helpful
      Helpful
       Report
      Leeber Cohen
      4.0 out of 5 stars Skips too many steps in proofs and solutions to problems.
      Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2022
      Verified Purchase
      I must admit to being disappointed by this text. I was happy to hear the solutions to the excercises are given in the bag of the book. Unfortunately the author skips many steps in the provided solutions. Some of the problems are easy and quite straightforward. Others are quite difficult as they should be. However, the solutions should include detailed description of the techniques and formulas used. Before giving the book a try, I recommend you restudy your standard trigonometric identities, integration by substitution, linear algebra, and particularly tangent and normal vectors. Even with this preparation many of the proofs also do not make sense. The problem again is skipped steps. I have not been able to find a differential geometry text at a true beginner or elementary level. This book has a lot of beautiful math which merits the four stars, but as a self learning text it does not meet the goal. Many self learners like myself need more help. If you can find a good on-line tutor familiar with this subject and text it probably would be helpful.
      4 people found this helpful
      Helpful
       Report
      Harry Markowitz
      5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
      Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2016
      Verified Purchase
      This is a great self-teaching guide for someone who is already comfortable with the calculus and matrix algebra.
      4 people found this helpful
      Helpful
       Report
      Zachary Turner
      3.0 out of 5 stars (Most) College students will love this book
      Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2002
      Verified Purchase
      I am using this book for a 2 semester Differential Geometry course at my university. The school used to use Do Carmo, but apparently the book was too advanced for the undergraduate level, so this semester they decided to switch over to give this one a test and see how it worked out. This book is not bad. It is basically Do Carmo rehashed for the not so mathematically mature. In all seriousness, the book even follows almost the exact same flow as Do Carmo, the topics are just presented with less rigor. The exercises are rather tedious at the end of each chapter, and in my opinion they don't really help to enhance the subject matter.
      On the other hand, if you fall in the category that most of the math majors at my university fall in (i.e. the category of people who really don't care, they just want to get an A and graduate, and don't care about mathematics), then you'll love this book. Why? Because the solution to every single problem is at the end of the book. In my opinion this is a huge flaw. It would be great if everyone were honest and everybody was genuinely interested in the learning Differential Geometry, but that isn't the case. So 90% of my class simply copies the answers out of the back of the book and hands it in to get a 100 on the homework assignments. Pretty sad if you ask me. The book is almost there. Without full solutions to every problem, this book would get 5 stars. But those students who simply turn to the back of the book 15 seconds after looking at the problem statement will learn nothing from this book, so I have to knock it down 2 stars. After all, what good is a book if it doesn't serve it's intended purpose. Perhaps some people would rate a book by "how easy is it to get an A in the class if this is the textbook", in which case they would probably rate this book 5 stars.
      Differential Geometry is a hard subject. It's _supposed_ to be hard. We're not talking about taking the reciprocal of a fraction here, it's Differential Geometry. You're _supposed_ to think about these problems for a long time. So if you're a professor considering this book for a course I would recommend against it. The text is good, but the students won't learn anything from it. I've suggested to my professor that perhaps it would be good to not assign problems from the text, but rather get problems from other textbooks where students can't look at the answers.
      In my opinion that is the only flaw with this book. Otherwise I think it's a great introduction, and about as elementary as you can really make the subject. If another book was too hard, then this is the one for you.
      Also, if you're interested in this book for self study it's a good choice since obviously you're genuinely interested in the subject matter and won't be tempted to look at the answer at the first opportunity.
      63 people found this helpful
      Helpful
       Report
      Dave Landay
      5.0 out of 5 stars Clear Explanations
      Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2015
      Verified Purchase
      Needed this for a class. Very clear examples and explanations presented in well ordered fashion.
      Nice!
      Helpful
       Report
      Visitor
      5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
      Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2014
      Verified Purchase
      Great introduction, or review for older students reliving their glory days (present company included).
      Helpful
       Report
      Carlos
      2.0 out of 5 stars Second Edition or Rough Draft?
      Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2013
      Verified Purchase
      I got this book for a graduate level differential geometry class. The book has a typo almost every other page. Don't get me wrong, typos are generally not a big deal, however if they're in the middle of equations it is just incorrect and useless. I don't recommend this book to anyone. The "Second Edition" on the cover makes me laugh. I can only imagine how much worse the first one was.
      20 people found this helpful
      Helpful
       Report
      Bryan Urizar
      4.0 out of 5 stars Not for math majors
      Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2011
      Verified Purchase
      I would not recommend this book for math majors. I used this book for a course in differential geometry which was not intended for math majors (so yes, it is sort of my fault), but thought I would mention this here just in case there are math students who are considering it. Like the author mentions, some of the methods he uses don't generalize and so they keep the requirements to a minimum and parts of the book cover topics that a math major would already know and not as rigorously. A math student should be able to tackle the classic in the genre by do Carmo. My professor often times used the proofs of do Carmo instead of the ones from Pressley. However, I suppose for non-math majors this is probably a very good book as it also includes solutions to every problem at the back. So its excellent for self-study!
      8 people found this helpful
      Helpful
       Report

      Top reviews from other countries

      Translate all reviews to English
      Julian Cederlöf Alamos Guerra
      3.0 out of 5 stars It's an okay introduction
      Reviewed in Sweden on December 17, 2021
      Verified Purchase
      It's definitly not the best book for learning differential elementary differential geometry, but its fine. Do Carmos book is in my opinion better
      Report
      Giga58
      5.0 out of 5 stars piena soddisfazione
      Reviewed in Italy on January 13, 2019
      Verified Purchase
      ottimo libro sia come contenuti che come grafica
      Report
      Dr. MOHAMMAD RAFEE
      2.0 out of 5 stars Elementary but not contain Explanation of theories.
      Reviewed in India on January 24, 2016
      Verified Purchase
      This book of "elementary differential geometry " is not a self explanatary but it needs to be study with Do Carmo,Differential Geometry of curves and surfaces.No doubt Author A.N. Pressley has tried to write this one with modern point of view,but this book failes to explain many more theories of curves and surfaces.I want summarize to tell that
      A.N. Pressley has explained less in his book.
      5 people found this helpful
       Report
      Alina Barnett
      5.0 out of 5 stars Good Book
      Reviewed in Canada on February 9, 2014
      Verified Purchase
      I like this textbook.

      It is well written, with only a few minor errors (typos). The notation is clear and fairly easy to understand, considering the level of complexity. Printing quality was ideal, economic without sacrificing readability.

      This is less expensive than the average textbook, and easier to follow than any other math textbook I have come across.
      Report
      Chen
      5.0 out of 5 stars A book offers good introduction
      Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 19, 2013
      Verified Purchase
      Just as its name, this book is for undergraduate level, so one can easily catch the contents without feel so struggling. There are many graphs for reader to build better understanding, and this is quite helpful if one feel so tricky to the formulas.
      One person found this helpful
       Report