Maths: A Student's Survival Guide: A Self-Help Workbook for Science and Engineering Students - Softcover

Olive, Jenny

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521575869 ISBN 13: 9780521575867

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1998

Synopsis

This friendly and gentle self-help workbook covers mathematics essential for first-year undergraduate scientists and engineers. Mathematics underlies all science and engineering degrees. If your mathematics is not strong, you may have a problem. This book is the solution. Jenny Olive uses her wide experience of teaching and helping students to give you a clear and confident understanding of the core mathematics you need to start a science and engineering degree. Each topic is introduced very gently, starting with simple examples that really bring out the basics, then moving on to more challenging problems. The author takes time to give tricks of the trade and shortcuts, but is also careful to show you common errors and how to anticipate and avoid them. There are over 800 questions for you to do with full and detailed solutions given so that if you get stuck you can work through and see exactly where you have gone wrong. Topics covered include trigonometry and hyperbolic functions, sequences and series (with detailed help on binomial series), differentiation and integration, and complex numbers. This book is a fun and easy way to brush up your maths - either before you start on your university or college course, or while you are getting to grips with it. It's never too late!

About this title

Review

'Jenny Olive's Maths: A Student's Survival Guide is a friendly book written in an engaging style ... It also contains very full, worked solutions to the exercises, which will greatly aid self-study. The introduction contains wise guidance on how to study and understand mathematics and the author's experience as a teacher comes out through her warnings of pitfalls and common errors ... it will be valued particularly by those who need to make up a deficiency in a specific topic or to remove the rust from their mathematics ... working through a few sections from Olive may be the prescription to cure the problem in many cases.' Nigel Steele, The Times Higher Education Supplement

' ... designed as a self-study guide, and allows students to make as much use of sections of the book as they need ... An important feature is that for every concept, the book returns to basics, giving clear and entertaining explanations of the background to maths ... this book is a fine example of its kind and I shall certainly use it with my students certainly use it with my students in the coming year.' Geoff Auty, School Science Review

' ... excellent value, and certainly worth recommending to the strugglers in your maths class or tutorial group.' Andrew King, The Observatory

From the Author

How my book can help with maths.
I've written this book to help students make the jump to the maths they need for first-year science and engineering courses. Its style is friendly and encouraging with many hints on how to avoid common mistakes. In maths, being happy with new concepts nearly always depends upon having understood previous work, so when I'm explaining something new, I give exact back-refences to where I've explained its various foundations. My book covers basic algebra, functions, trigonometry, series including binomial series, complex numbers and calculus with chapters on differentiation and integration. I've included hyperbolic functions here too.

If you are a student, you'll find lots of diagrams which I urge you to draw on and add to, and even some little extra drawings to keep you cheerful. I also give detailed solutions to problems so that you can sort out for yourself any mistakes that you made when you tried them. You won't need to be afraid of getting stuck because you'll be able to find out what went wrong. You'll also find plenty of help and encouragement to think for yourself and gain self-confidence. Try it and see!

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521575869
• ISBN 13: 9780521575867
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 578