Calculus with Applications, Brief Version

Calculus with Applications is a great textbook for college students from which to learn calculus. It's difficult to write a review on a textbook, especially one that covers mathematics, but as textbooks go, this one is damn good. As a college student pursuing a degree in Business, I have been exposed to materiel covering numerous disciplines. In each instance, I either grasped the subject matter immediately or struggled greatly through the rest of the semester. When taking my calculus class last Fall, I had no qualms once I bought and read through this book.I found this textbook to be a nice approach to a sterile subject I once learned in high school. The strength of this textbook lies in its presentation of "real-life" examples, such as how calculus is used to compute both periodic and continuous compound interest. When most people hear of calculus, it might conjure up images of long algebraic computations only scientists use to find the meaning of the universe or what engineers require to build the latest nuclear reactor. What this book does is to allay those misconceptions and presents a practical approach to "real world" calculus applications. One does not need to understand astrophysics or financial reports to learn calculus. This book covers calculus theory, and as the title suggests, its application. When covering topics such as differentiation, this book will not ask dull questions such as "find the slope of the tangent at the given point on the curve...." Every math textbook is prone to these types of questions, but this text presents those types of examples only when necessary. This book is not going to make you enjoy math or make you want to run to college's Registrar's office to change your major. It will demonstrate where and how calculus is used outside of the heavy sciences. It presents material clearly, provides an applicable scenario, solves the problem, and explains the answer. And like any other math textbook, follow-up questions are included to reaffirm concepts and odd-numbered answers are provided in the back of the book to solidify understanding.I want to stress these points: this book is focused in its approach, practical in its application, and geared toward the average college student. This text is ideal for college students who need to learn college-level mathematics and don't want to be bored by finding the volume of a cube or the area under a curve. This is not to say these subjects aren't approached and outlined, however the nature of this book is teach calculus theory without driving students into an intellectual stupor. Calculus with Applications is not a coloring book either. It requires a fundamental understanding of linear algebra, graphing theory, and logarithmic computation, to name a few. My point is: one does not need be Einstein, a Math major, or an engineer to grasp and use the concepts presented in this text or a regular basis. Whether its how to calculate mortgage costs, earnings on