Schaum's Outline of Modern Introductory Differential Equations: With Laplace Transforms, Numerical Methods, Matrix Methods (And) Eigenvalue Problems

Whenever I want to brush up my ODE and PDE skills, I will reach out to this one. It is like instant "stock-up", refresh my memories very fast. Good buy.

I like this book a lot more than my Diff. Eq. textbook, mostly because it focuses on application rather than abstraction. Bronson does a good job of explaining the mechanisms and applications of DE, while cutting through most of the kludgy rhetoric and laborious explanations of my course textbook. The examples are straight-forward without too much of a stretch to see how they work, while the explanations are quick and to-the-point.I would thoroughly recommend buying the Schaum's Easy Outline for DE in addition to this book, since I find the Easy Outline to be easier to pick up quickly on a first read. The Easy Outline is essentially the Outline, boiled down to the bare essentials and re-written to be easier to absorb quickly. The regular outline (this book) does a good job of filling in the gaps and providing more examples on top of the Easy Outilne.My copy (2nd edition, current) shows an original copyright date of 1973, with another in 1994 to reflect the Library of Congress title update (the title change was minute, and not worth repeating). I was surprised by the extreme similarity between some examples in the Ouline versus those in my course textbook (carrying a 2003 copyright in its 7th edition). It makes you wonder if this is the reference for the textbook writers!My only criticism of this book is that it is not a textbook. If it were, I wouldn't have to spend four times as much on another book which I use for not much more than the exercises. Oh, and the Outline HAS plenty of problems, both solved and not.

I have reviewed several versions of this work in connectionwith taking the course and passing the Engineering In TrainingLicensure Examination. Topics; such as, valuation of parameters,constants of integration, homogeneous and non-homogeneoussolutions, nth order equations, applications of differentialequations, equations in electric circuits and gram mixturesin organic chemistry are all covered in considerable detail.This work together with Boyce and DiPrima plus the professor's notes helped me to get an "A" in the course. DifferentialEquations is a course requiring considerable practice to masterthe various techniques. I spent between 15 minutes and 2 hoursper day depending upon the juncture point in the course.Obviously, studying for the mid-term and final exam requiredmore concentrated study. Overall, this book is a gem.You will need it to handle the various twists and turnsin the subject. It is geared toward the math major or engineering perspective so that the problems vary from simple to complex.In this course, you cannot let the so-called grass growunder your feet; otherwise, the pace of the presentationwill bury you in confusing details before long.

When I took differential equations the college wanted us to buy the textbook for $135 and the solutions manual for $15. They were horrible!! I bought Schaum's Outline of Differential Equations ...and used it instead. (...) Dr. Bronson explains concepts very well and has many detailed solutions to examples. There are also supplementary problems with the answers in the back. I recommend this item to anyone taking differential equations.

This book is a must have if you are taking, or are thinking about taking, a class on differential equations. I am currently taking a graduate course on advanced math and this book has been a tremendous help. Each chapter is well defined, in what it covers, and has the exact information I was looking for each time.You start off with a little theory and some general rules for each type of solution, then it's right to the examples. To be honest, the examples are why I bought the book. Theory is good, but you have to see the theory in use to be able to apply it to whatever you are doing.I always have this book by my side when doing problems, or just reviewing my class notes. My only complaint, which is really to stong of a word to use, is the breadth of each subject covered. I did find myself, on occasion, wishing there were more problems, or the theory was a little more in depth. But this in no way detracted from the usefullness of the book. If I really needed more information I would just search for "Schaum" followed by whatever I needed, and buy a new book.