Posted on Friday, February 13, 2015
If you've ever taken a physics class, you know how important a sufficient understanding of the underlying mathematics is.
In this mathematics textbook, you'll find possibly all the mathematics you'd need for first years of an undergraduate physics course - algebra, geometry, calculus and statistics.
You'll find the theory, proofs and examples and what I found very nice was that the examples were from physics, making the sometimes abstract seeming mathematics come more to life and you'll be able to see where and how you would use this piece of knowledge.
Of-course the book also offers exercises, which as in case of the examples, have a tinge of physics to it and because of it are more interesting to solve.
With the book there is also an online study guide designed to help the student advance quite quickly. The online study guide can be accessed either as a print version, where you can go through it chapter by chapter in pdf format, or as screen format that looks more appealing and is faster to use.
Having never used a study guide before, I found it very helpful and since it doesn't pack a lot of information or tasks in a small amount of space, it is more motivational to actually use it and go through the book and exercises and check whether you know everything you're supposed to.
If taken alone, the textbook is as any other mathematics textbook for physicists, together with the study guide it is an excellent combination, especially if you prefer to study alone from a book rather than listen to lectures and take notes there. It's strange to write it, but I loved the whole concept. I wish every textbook came with a study guide like this one.
Labels: book review, mathematics