Excursions in Modern Mathematics

it was just what i needed for class... and in great condition as described. Came quick.

I needed this book for my easy math class. Bought it for a great price compared to the local bookstores.

First, please notice the other reviewer seemed to be upset about their shipping mishap, not the book. Don't you hate it when someone confuses their purchase experience with the book content, then describes the book content in terms of their purchase experience?!?! I have taken many college math courses, including algebra, trigonometry, and calculus. Calculus was the only one that had some application to the real world, until the Modern Math class which used this book. The first chapter starts out with preference ballots, which is relevant in our world of 3rd party candidates stealing elections (think Nader and Perot). It is interesting to see how many voting systems can be applied with varying winners and fairness. After elections and weighted ballots, you learn about Fibonacci Numbers, Golden Ratio, Gnomons, and Spiral growths. Population growth math is explored, as is fractals, symmetry, geometry, statistics, probabilities, and distributions. Everyone in my class remarked on how much they actually enjoyed the course and the actual textbook. This textbook is extremely easy to read and use, with many colorful pictures, graphs, and side notes. The sections are very easy to digest because they are short and sweet, usually covering one concept per section. I recommend this book for anyone who is simply interested in the real-world application of math, not just those taking a course which requires this book. There is a student solutions manual sold separately, but don't bother. This book has all the odd answers in the back, and it is not terribly difficult anyways. It is just challenging enough to still be interesting.

this book explains the material in an understandable way. it has lots of examples and the homework section covers everything. i highly recommend it.

I teach a university course based on this textbook and I really like it. It is full of mathematics that students can apply readily to everyday situations, without being heavily computational. The problem sets are relevant to the chapter text. Also, the problem sets are divided into three categories ("walking", "jogging", and "running") based on the level of thought that must go into them. The four chapters on statistics and probability are not quite what I'd like them to be, because in my opinion they cover too much statistical ground in hardly any depth. They would be better if they just did some basic statistics and didn't try to get students at this level into normal curves and standard deviations and all that. My students are particularly fond of the graph theory unit (chapters 5-8). In fact, their only complaint of the book so far is the high price.