I am taking a differential equations course for the engineering program at Drexel University and I must say that this is one of the worst text books I have ever come across. I wonder what Boyce and Diprima were smoking as they were writting this book. First of all make sure you brush up on your greek before reading this book, there are more greek symbols in it then there are numbers or letters from the english alphabet. This book is so vague that you may as well consult a magic 8-ball for guidance. Basically, if you buy this book, prepare to fail. It skips so many steps its rediculous. My mind turns to mush every time I open it. For my homework in this course using this book, I just write the giberish my magic 8 ball tells me to. Even the TAs are lost in this book. Consider this a warning and not a rating. STAY AWAY!

I have had the privledge to use this book for an introductory course in differential equations with colleages of Dr. Boyce. This book is well written and contains numerous examples and a plethora of problems. However, a student would do well to have a very firm knowledge of calculus and a quick mathematical mind; some of the methods covered are not candy coated to go down easier. As such, it is important that a strong professor and a strong curriculum accompany this book. This is NOT a good book for self-instruction. However, it is a very useful reference to go back to when dealing with more advanced mathematical topics.

This book is excellent for math majors or engineers who have had
a strong background in higher mathematics. The work provides
a step-by-step analysis of the classic problem areas i.e.
initial value problems, solution boundaries, homogeneous and
non-homogeneous solutions, the exponential form, higher order
differential equations, variation of parameters, LaPlace
transformation and other more exotic applications too numerous
to list here. For non-math majors, the book may become difficult

to follow. Therefore; it may help to consult with the Schaum's
Outline in order to supplement this text. Boyce and DiPrima
is more than enough to get you through the Fundamentals of
Engineering Examination. Differential Equations is a subject
which requires students to take copious notes. It pays to
struggle through the homeworks and to plan daily study sessions
of 15 minutes to 1 hour depending upon where you are in the
course. It is well worth the effort to master this course

because the applications to engineering are numerous and profound. Mastery of this subject will provide you with a
life-long skill.

The marketing of this book seems aimed at people interested in science, but seems written for a close group of colleagues who can keep up with the high-end philosophy, which makes the writing incomprehensible to anyone outside of the circle. I'm guessing even if the reader is up on this information, it would be a tough slog reading. I learned almost nothing from this book. If you are up on your Philosophy 401 and also understand theoretical physics and economics, you might understand it.

This book seems to line up with this analysis , Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) "Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in 'philosophical propositions', but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and give them sharp boundaries." I believe the above fits nicely with Nancy Cartwrights efforts,The Dappled World. I find the words within The Dappled World very washed and ironed,very tidy.

First of all, the congenial title belies it's in-depth content. As another reviewer noted, this book requires a pretty thorough understanding of both philosophical method and matters of science, including a grasp of quantum mechanics(not math-heavy, but having an idea of what a Hamiltonian is, for example).

Having said that, I find the book well-written, referenced, and closely argued. The author is up-front and explicitly lays out the three main theses she wishes to convey in the Introduction.

These theses, very briefly, are:
1) Empirical success of physics theories argues for their truth but not necessarily their universality.
2) Laws, where they do apply, hold only ceteris paribus.
3) Our most wide-ranging scientific knowledge is the knowledge of the nature of things, not our knowledge of laws. The former being far more generative.

Continuing from her previous book, "How the Laws of Physics Lie", the author argues that the 'laws' comprising science are not pieces of a grand unitary hierarchical schema of laws (towards the completion of which science is usually presumed to be headed), but rather that the relationship between laws is tenuous at best (hence, "Dappled" in the title). That the laws of nature are true ceteris paribus, and that their validity relies on "successful repeated operations of a nomological machine" (p. 50). A nomological machine being the selected components, capacities and situations that will repeatedly display the same behavior (the behavior that the resultant laws encode - typically with an implicit universal quantifier in front of them).

This is not anti-science or anti-realism or social constructivism. It is, however, explicitly anti-scientific-fundamentalism. The laws of science are not absolute and final, and an ideological belief in that absolutist view is misplaced. Science is a more complicated act than that and it is possible that "reality may well be just a patchwork of laws" (p. 34)

A book that concentrates on building "boundaries" in marriages is bound to be divisive. I should've figured that out from the title.

My wife and I had just finished reading "Love is a Decision," by Gary Smalley, when we decided to try this title that had been recommended on "Focus on the Family." We got the workbook and made a sincere attempt to read and discuss each chapter.

The more we tried to get into the book, the more uptight I got, until I coudn't stand it any more and got rid of it.

Some of the principles in this book are bound to be helpful, and I have no argument there, except that they kept calling them "rules" or "laws" or some such thing. Once something is called a "law" and you have trouble "obeying" it, it's easy to get down on oneself.

The other problem I had with the book, is that I felt like it was written by a committee. There were many times when the examples and illustrations made me go, "What?" They just didn't seem to fit with the point the authors were trying to make.

If you're looking for something more positive to nurture your marriage along, I'd recommend books by Smalley over this. I'd rather work on being friends with my wife than setting up boundaries.

The next book we're going to read is "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work," by John M. Gottman. It's been highly recommended by someone we respect a great deal.

This book like all the others in the Townsend/Cloud series is real specific and great for anyone wanting to know more about healthy ways of relating. It helps to define who is responsible for what behavior and how to handle those that are out of control whether it is your spouse's or yours. Yes I had some real eye opener's and I like to think I do a great job, but I was just as responsible for my part in the marriage's success. Not all, but part. Boundaries in marriage gives you the tools for healthy relating and how to take action even if the other person is not. It brings people together not seperating with some cooky formula about men being so very different that they are from Mars. I think anyone who wants to take charge of the marriage or just feel good about their relationship should read this book.

Save your pennies for a copy of the 1952 edition (out of print) from a used book dealer. The 1913 edition uses a set of names known as "American Code" that botanists haven't used since the 1950's; the services of a professional taxonomist is practically required to update the changes, and few people will know what you're talking about if you use an "American Code" name for a plant. The 1952 edition updates all of that, and includes quite a few more species. In my opinion, Dover did a real disservice to botany by reissuing the 1913 edition. Kay Lancaster (plant taxonomist)

Good, inexpensive material for starting out in the study of vegetation.

Bourgeois's "Philosophy at the Boundary of Reason", a pretentious title if there is any, displays the characteristics of bad writing and stereotypical thinking that has become a feature of a lot of continental philosophy. In his latest (one would almost be tempted to hope: his last) book, he sets out to approach the boundary of reason within the context of "ethics and postmodernity." Thus he repeats the most common stereotypes on the Kantian distinction between Grenze und Schranke and, in his typical acontextual and ahistorical approach, shows neither knowledge nor interest in the complex discussion of that very problematic in post-Kantian German idealism. How an account of the boundary of reason could ever be written without taking into account this complex discussion, has fully escaped this reader. In addition, the lacking grasp of the most fundamental knowledge of the original German texts is more than obvious. And this Philosophy 101 approach, completely devoid of any awareness of the history of philosophy, extends into his discussion of Derrida. Derrida is erected as a mere straw-man of "postmodernity" (and there is also no awareness of the subtle distinctions that are to be drawn between postmoden, postmodernity, and postmodernism) that a completely unnuanced reading of Ricoeur is to take down under the auspices of an ethics that barely hides its tendentious theological underpinnings. In short, this book shows American continental philosophy at its worst - complex philosophical concepts, their sedimented history, are reduced to mere signal words that betray the ideological position of this philosopher whose style is a curious mixture of linguistic positivism and doctrinal thought.

This is a fair rendition of the question of the boundary of reason in the postmodern situation. Chapter seven is particularly helpful for anyone at all honest in the attempt to think at the boundary in a postmodern situation. It throws into focus the cental issues of language and the living present, contrasting a postmodern view of these with one that still respects a sense of the phenomenological primordiality as a main contribution of the whole movement of phenomenology, in all of its phases. After considering the postive dimensions of postmodernity throughout this serious inquiry, an attempt is made to incorporate this dimension into a Ricoeurean ethical synthesis, one that can be easily seen to take into account the positive dimensions of postmodern thinking.

I am working with issues about boundaries, and have found that I am caught in many addictive relationships and have very limited boundaries. This book has guided me on the path to have a stronger boundary around myself. This book is good, therefore I am purchasing one for my healing circle. If you have a problem with boundaries, this is one book to read.

After reading about the myriad ways of "smoothing up the boundary" presented in a lucid, user-friendly and even intimate manner, I decided to put a few of them to the practical test. The boundaries we as a society find in eveyday life are usually found to be rife with roughness, tending even to chafe at our tender skin. Oh, the nights I've tossed and turned at night aching for a kind of Psychic Sandpaper, if you will. ..................................................................................................For if we are to accept this book's basic axiom, namely that there are indeed Boundaries, then who would disagree that it would be far more pleasurable to have boundaries that we would physically enjoy brushing up against, or perhaps pressing our faces to.

I had to drop out of the class because of this book. Calculus was always my favorite subject, but this book just made it too confusing. Too many theorems and definitions without any examples. College professors, have mercy on your students and choose another book for your differential equations courses!

this book is used at a certain university in georgia... the one that i attend and i thought that the book was great. it helped me a lot. especially since we used their calculus book here which is really great also. this book has lots of examples and problems. the solutiuons manuel also has a lot of worked out problems... mostly the even problems and has helpful hints for the other problems.. i would buy the book.. and you prollie will too since you're taking differential equations

I don't know why everyone else attacks this book! I used it in a third semester math class at Cornell which was 1/3 vector calc (we used Thomas' Calculus, another great book), 1/3 differential equations, and 1/3 Fourier Series, partial differential equations, boundary value problems. We covered Chapters 1-3, parts of 4 and 6, and all of chapter 9.

The book is excellent. The explanations are clear. The example problems are not just "plug and play." The problems at the end of each section are not bad. I learned about oscillations and mechanical vibrations in physics and then learned about them from this book (3.4/3.6)...the difference was amazing. Their derivations made sense, and the characteristic polynomial technique they use is 1000 times simpler than the trial solution method that many introductory physics books on mechanics use.

The book's only weak point is the discussion of stability and the phase plan in 6.1. They develop it through a bunch of examples instead of talking about the general theory behind it. But this is a minor problem.

This book is completely useless, not to mention ugly. Unless you have a great instructor, or really love esoteric mathematical language, you probably won't learn anything from this book. It is perhaps better suited for math majors than for science or engineering majors. It would seem that the authors are just trying to make things difficult by using only obscure Greek symbols in their definitions and examples. The worked out examples skip too many important steps--not just the elementary algebra. It is nice that the answers for all (not just the odd or even) problems are given in the back of the book; however, even the first couple problems in each section are too difficult. There at least needs to be a solution manual. It would be nice to have a few "easy" problems that would allow one to get a grasp of the basic concepts. If your instructor makes you buy this book, make sure that you get some sort of supplemental course outline book (Shaum's, etc.) or you will be completely lost.

I recently took my college's "introductory" differential equations class. We did not use this book, but instead V.I. Ar'nold's, which isn't always quite appropriate for beginner's trying to understand how to solve a differential equation. So I turned to this one for reference. Overall, I found it to be of great help as a reference and guide to learning how to solve differential equations. It may well be QUITE dry, but I didn't really find that to be a hindrance. Overall, however, I would reccomend it more to the reader looking for a practical handbook for solving equations. If you're looking for the deep theory or beauty of the mathematics, you might want to look elsewhere.

This book teaches ODE by doing the one think every student likes to learn by examples!! In each chapter you will find a couple of examples to illustrate the theory and concepts needed to solve the very few Diff.Eq. that we can. There is a complete answer key in the back, which is always a plus. The book includes proofs for most of the theorems (at least the ones that aren't too complicated to show in an introductory text). The book in general is laid out well, very organized and very helpful. I recently finished a course in Ordinary Differential Equations using this book and had no trouble doing well in the course thanks to the help of this book. Learning by examples is the main technique the authors use which is Great!!! Too many math texts recite theory without giving adequate examples.

My 10-year old daughter was reading this book for school. She brought to my attention that the book contained explicit sexual descriptions and profanity. To my shock the irresponsible publisher (Penguin Putnam/Puffin books) has recommended this book for ages 10 and older. I am thankful that I have a daughter that is more prudent and responsible than the publishers who ask us to trust them.

I am 13 and I read this book on my own time. I thought it wasn't really bad but it was really slow and really boring at some parts. The overall story is good. But it takes forever for them to tell you what the storyline is I would say that this is a good book if you want to hear a story about racism.

The publisher recommends this book for ages 10 and up. I would agree that a mature and articulate 10 year could read this book. Sacks's protagonist begins as a self absorbed child, but emerges as a more aware and politically conscious teenager. Some readers may believe it to be sexually explicit, however, I would contend that the book artfully opens up a dialogue for pre teens and emerging teenagers about peer pressure, their presence in this world, and their obligation as a global citizen.