ISBN0-495-01265-3

I don't like this book; it's like most undergraduate differential equations books. It moves slowly yet doesn't explain things in enough depth.

The order in which topics are presented is chaotic; one moment one is using an analytic technique and then the next moment the book switches into discussion of qualitative methods; the reader never gets a feeling of mastering one or the other. It's hard to skip around in the book because it's hard to sort out which material builds on previous material.

The book presents diffeq as a chaotic, hodge-podge subject, which might be accurate, but this leaves the reader confused and without an overall picture of what diffeq is.

Relative to the volume and cost of this text, you will learn very little from it. Among the "big" undergrad texts I prefer Boyce and DiPrima, although only slightly. The best introductory books on differential equations are from the Springer-Verlag series, in my opinion: check out the text by Braun or the other one by Hubbard...both are listed in my reviews.

the main objections i have to this book, are similar to others here:

1) much too expensive for what you get.

2) much too verbose for what is being said.

the masterful book by hurewicz from the 1950's covers the same ideas of dynamical systems and geometrically oriented o.d.e,'s but in succint, clear, deep, and well organized prose.

and i bought a copy of hurewicz for 5 bucks last week.\

even the vaunted exam ples of this book, such as the tacoma narrows bridge disaster, is cribbed from other books like braun.


but to ask a poor student to lay out 130 dollars for an inflated ripoff of better, shorter, cheaper books, is morally wrong, and as a professor i will do a lot to avoid it.

So i really hate this book... it give maybe one example of certain concepts and they are not even that descriptive. i might just be use to my other math books... but coming from a girl who is a math major, i would stay away!!!

Great for learning. Poor for reference.

This book is unique. Most differential equations textbooks simply provide formulae for different types of problems, but you don't really see the big picture. This book lets you see the big picture, but omits many of the most useful formulae that you may need in your career. This for that. It would be nice to see a book with the best of both worlds, but if you simply want to learn and understand the topic, this book is the way to go. Also, there is a good emphasis on qualitative and numerical techniques. Students often feel like they get less out of a mathematics class when qualitative and numerical techniques are emphasised over more analytic approaches. However, those of us who have worked in the "real world" know that the qualitative and numerical techniques are probably even more important. I have worked as a research statistician and my research areas emphasise computing. When I'm presented with real problems and real data (which, in my career, usually comes in large, unmanageable quantities), do I usually pull out my notebook and tackle the problem in a very precise manner, working out an exact solution? No, quite often I cannot realistically do that. Now I'll admit that I don't use much from this particular field on the job, but it still applies. Moving on, I must also mention that the book does a very good job at explaining these qualitative and numerical techniques in addition to things that are more analytic, although it sometimes a little too verbose.

Regarding applications, the book covers a lot of fields and does put a big emphasis on applications. Physics, biology (especially population growth models), and electrical/computer engineering receive the most treatment. Overall, I would say that the book does an excellent job at including plenty of applications and choosing meaningful ones.

I don't have much to say about the exercices. Most aren't too contrived and they mixed up the difficulty fairly well. However, I would have liked to see more "hard" problems.

In summary, I'd recommend that you pick up a different book if you need a reference for work or research, but pick this one up if you actually want to learn and UNDERSTAND the basics of differential equations.

Worst. Book. Ever.
I am not exaggerating.
Insufficient depth and poor examples that do not coincide with problems. Proofs are round-about.