Besides the picture on the front, this book is horrible! I've learned more by personal derivation and experimenting than through this book. The explanations are overly bloated, and include so many approximations and tables that the theory behind this book's ramblings is lost completely. Instead of focusing on theoretical multivariable calculus while introducing, as a short diversion an approximating method, this book builds around a foundation of approximations, which clouds the actual mathematics in the process.

In my opinion, unless theory is ingrained in students' heads from the start, they will never even attempt to understand it. After all, the book gives the theory second priority, so why should students pay any attention to it?

Moreover, in the introduction, the book promises to have problem sets that a student "cannot just look for a similar example to solve... you will have to think." However, after working with this book's homework problems, I've found them to be the exact opposite of this! There are plenty of similar examples for any given problem, and as a result the teacher's role becomes trivial, while at the same time students don't really understand anything they're doing. Not only this, but the problems are overly MUNDANE, and there is too much practice for a single concept. If a student has taken calculus, he can do derivatives, so he should not need 31 exercises to learn how to do partial derivatives.

Capping all this off, there are no truly challenging problems at all in this book. All of them focus on mechanical methods rather than clever application of known theory. The biggest challenge in this book, in fact, is keeping your hand intact as you take 50 partial derivatives, and then hit a problem that says "repeat for the second partial derivatives."

Meanwhile, your fine motor skills deteriorate quickly as you overwork them drawing or re-drawing a graph or table every other problem.

Bravo, Debbie Hughes, you can use Mathematica's graphing capabilities to their fullest. We're all proud of you. Now can you keep them out of your textbook? No one wants to see a billion tables staring them in the face, and then have to copy and change a billion more for homework. That's not a way to learn. This whole textbook is just a way to pretend you're learning.

Waiting to really learn anything from this book is like waiting for Richard Simmons to get married. Trust me, it's not gonna happen, folks.

kubkhan

"This innovative book is the product of an NSF funded calculus consortium based at Harvard University and was developed as part of the calculus reform movement" Beware of Harvard, i.e. reform Calculus. Instead of teaching people about maxima and minima, you show them how to use a calculator to guess. What a load of junk. Nobody learns what anything means, just how to apply formulas, etc. It is a shame what books and authors like these are doing to college mathematics. This book is particularly bad, a whole bunch of fluff, not a damn ounce of substance.

I have to disagree with my fellow Californians and unfortunately agree with someone from New York. This is an excellent foundation overview without the clutter of Anton's and Stewart's books. I found it to be a conveniently carried paperback and an enjoyable read.

Skipped around leaving some odd problems out of book. Only explained a few problems in total detail. This is by far the worst solutions manual on the market. Bring it back for a refund before its to late.

This is, without a doubt, the most incredibly worthless book I have come across in my college experience. I am getting an A in Calculus in spite of, and NOT because of this book. The so-called "Harvard Method" leaves the student with the concepts of calculus, but with none of the tools to actually perform the operations. If you get stuck with this as a required text, I strongly recommend you also purchase a traditional calculus text to actually learn from.

I used this book about three years ago for all my three calculus classes, and most of my classmates liked it. We found this book to be very challenging because it made us think all semester long. We also liked it because our professor explained every single example of the book; most of all, they were very explained by our professor. Now I am looking forward to see the new edition of the book.

This book does not have 608 pages. It have 370 pages full of nothing.

not a bad book. I preferred the wireless internet explained. since it is more practical in all the considerations and doesnt focus on interfaces. this book is worth reading but i recomend you look around first before buying.

I purchased this item because I wanted to see suggested fingerings for some of the Mozart sonatas. The review says "The pieces include fingerings ". This is not exactly true. About a 3rd of the easier pieces have fingerings; the harder ones do not. The size of the music is large print, which is good for baby boomer eyes, but the quality is very poor and inconsistent from piece to piece. Smudged and blurry in places. The binding is of the type which, with a little use, will probably break into pieces. If you like this kind of challenging piano music, spend more on quality and don't buy this 'low budget' (i.e. low quality) product.

The text is very wordy and problems could be answered in the book or in a solutions manual. Very few illustrations are a problem. Our Prof. had to explain several mistakes in the text that were completely incorrect.

This textbook, although presenting a basic approach to the fundamentals of Precalculus, provides a cluttered collection of confusing explanations and poorly edited questions. The cover proves to be the best designed part of the bookl; inside there is little illustration and lots of wordy text. The book contains no full set of answers which could often leave a teacher stranded in some of its poorly phrased, misguided questions. Overall, a poorly conceived, designed, edited, and published textbook.

I read the preceding reviews and don't find what was said untrue. The simplicity and algorithmically solved problems, however, belie the sophisticated look at functions. My students found the work with difference equations difficult because of the symbolic manipulation, but their teacher (me), appreciated how the text took the idea of derivatives, reduced this concept into a discrete function, and concluded with the antiderivative. Very clever.

I totally agree with [a negative reviewer]. I was very disappionted after waiting so long for the release. The authur constantly repeated things, trying to make the book longer. Plus Tucker seems to have a grudge against Joshua Chamberlain. In the last chapter he makes it sound like Chamberlain had nothing to do with the battle and lied about his contribution afterwards. He provdes no maps to prove his "research". He also states the 15th Alabama retired up Big Round Top after the battle. But wasn't Big Round Top in Union hands after the 2nd day? There's many things I didn't like about this book.

The author, who did a good job with Burnside's Bridge, repeats himself over and over ad naseoum and fails to include maps or drawings to illustrate what he is describing. His main premise is, that had the 15 th Alabama been fully complemented with men and had it been supported by another regiment, Gettysburg would have been a Confederate victory. That is prepostorous, considering the number of reinforcements the Union had. Oates and his men deserve a lot of credit for their valor but so do the Union troops who put up one hell of a battle from prepared defensive positions. The author is capable of writing a much better product and must have been in a hurry to churn another book out.

I had originally placed this order almost a year ago with much anticipation. After the publishing was delayed for months I had forgotten I even had it on back order. Well, I finally got my copy and I must say that it is a big disappointment.

To begin with, there are exactly two illustrations: one map and one seriously degraded photo of Col Oates. Unless you have the memory of an elephant it is very hard to get detail on timelines and troop movements/placements on text alone. This, to me, was perhaps the biggest disappointment.

Another area of concern is the, at times, seemingly lack of real research. One example of this is the claim made by the author that the hill, thus the entire battle, could have been won if the 15th ALA had had support, etc. He failed to explain where these units were supposed to come from, neglected to mention that by the time the 15th ALA had run out of steam there wasn't enough daylight left to mount another assault, any supports would have to come from over a mile away under fire, and he doesn't offer any gameplan as to how the Confederates were supposed to hold the hill once it was taken (given the fact that there were 1000s of Union troops within double quick distance). I don't mean to nitpick on one aspect but the entire book is written this way.

I was looking for a book that was going to finally explain the Confederate point of view in detail, with battle maps to accompany the text. But this reads more like a guy who is trying to defend his family's honor after someone hurled a staining insult at them. I agree that the Conf side of this legendary struggle has not been represented in enough detail and scope. I still feel that way.

Bottom line-the premise is a great idea; don't waste your money.

I came across this book sitting on my coffee table, being left there by my 13 year old. He bought it at a school book fair. I tried to see the "good advice" in this book and just didn't find any. It seems to me that it is mostly how to put one over on your parents and other adults.

This book has some very good points. The situations are definitely ones that we all have had to deal with on one level or another. The advice stops being good advice, however, when it condones sneaking and lying to parents, and being nasty to stepsiblings and stepparents. Is this advice we really want to pass on to any generation? I thought I was being an over reactive adult up until my daughter and I discussed the content. Needless to say, my teenage son hasn't gotten to read this book. Yet. I hope.

This book is so pathetically minimal that I award it...1/10 of a star. (It may be useful in starting a fire in your fireplace...maybe). DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS SOLUTION MANUAL! It only includes about every other odd solution, and most of the time, it shows just the (often incorrect) answer. The worst part is, that same answer is usually in the back of the textbook! It is definitely not worth even $5.00, so save your money!

Most of the Chandler materials in this book and its second printing contain substantial errors of fact and interpretation about Chandlers in early Virginia and Maryland. Dr. Tucker now agrees. See my article in "Tidewater Virginia Families," Volume 9, Number 3, November/December 2000, pp. 140-151 and my other articles in TVF - 2000 and 2001. Additional articles clarifying many early Virginia and Maryland Chandler families will be published in 2002 and (likely) 2003.

This book has cute pictures which may interest children, but its text is inaccurate and incomplete. If you use these methods on any breed other than a small toy breed you may end up with problems in the long run. Instead read "Puppy Preschool" by John Ross and Barbara McKinney.