Modern Engineering Mathematics

This book's emphasis is on how to mathematically express and solve engineering problems. It is an appropriate text to learn about applying mathematics, but inappropriate for learning "pure mathematics". It is a well thought-out and organized work with many strong points, but also some weaknesses. The strong points include: (1) an intuitive presentation of mathematical concepts which facilitates understanding, (2) the inclusion of numerous examples and solved problems in the text, (3) an easy and friendly informal style of presentation, (4) coverage of most of the important topics in basic engineering mathematics, (5) the good, but not excessive, use of meaningful graphics, and (6) discussion of the use of mathematical software to solve engineering problems. This later point is significant, as many engineering mathematics books ignore or only briefly mention the use of mathematical software. Some may reasonably question the authors' choice of MATLAB, primarily a "number crunching" package, as the primary software, with an overlay of Maple commands. Although straight Maple may have been a better choice, the MATLAB presentations are generally easy to translate to Maple. There are, however, a few issues that diminish the presentation : Probably the most frustrating is the Exercises' problem descriptions. Problems are often presented with multiple parts. Unfortunately, each problem part is not identified by a separate letter or number. All problem parts are just run together in the statement of the problem. A better organized set of problem statements would be quite helpful. The authors do not include learning objectives, as found in some other contemporary texts covering similar ground, e.g., Stroud's "Engineering Mathematics". Stroud's behavioral objective format is particularly helpful in identifying the skills readers should have developed after finishing a section. The inclusion of objectives would definitely benefit readers. Most of the examples presented are easily solved by the reader from already provided material. However, the authors occasionally throw a curve, no mathematical pun intended, and present examples beyond the capability of most readers at this stage in their mathematical maturity. For example, the "packing problem" in the second chapter. Here the author provides answers without details of how these nontrivial solutions were obtained. On a few occasions the authors' answers to Exercises are, arguably or demonstrably, incorrect. Continuing from the Chapter on functions: An example of the former is when the authors present a problem of a road built x meters above rough terrain. In the solution set a value of -2 for the independent variable is presented as acceptable, resulting in a negative area. The authors explain that this would represent the "area of cutting". The authors' had just described how to identify the appropriate domain of a function. Thus, a better answer would be that for the problem as presented a v