Fundamentals of Scientific Mathematics

"For high school seniors or college freshmen with a background in algebra and trigonometry, the book should provide a good introduction to matrices, vector algebra, analytical geometry, and calculus. The work's solid modern mathematical content and its personality recommend consideration as a text or as stimulating supplementary reading." — American Scientist "The book is well written and the presentation throughout achieves clarity of thought with a minimum of computational effort." — Physics Today This rewarding text, beautifully illustrated by the author and written with superb clarity, offers undergraduate students a solid mathematical background and functions equally well for independent study. The five-part treatment begins with geometry, defining three-dimensional Euclidean space and its axioms, the coordinate system and coordinate transformation, and matrices. A review of vector algebra covers vector properties, multiplication, the resolution of a vector along a complete set of base vectors, and vector transformations. Topics in analytic geometry introduce loci, straight lines, the plane, two-dimensional curves, and the quadratic form. Functions are defined, as are intervals, along with multiplicity, the slope at a point, continuity, and areas. The concluding chapter, on differential and integral calculus, explains the concept of a limit, the derivative, the integral, differential equations, and applications of the calculus to kinematics.