Book Description

Emphasizing the physical interpretation of mathematical solutions, this book introduces applied mathematics while presenting partial differential equations.Topics addressed include heat equation, method of separation of variables, Fourier series, Sturm-Liouville eigenvalue problems, finite difference numerical methods for partial differential equations, nonhomogeneous problems, Green's functions for time-independent problems, infinite domain problems, Green's functions for wave and heat equations, the method of characteristics for linear and quasi-linearwave equations and a brief introduction to Laplace transform solution ofpartial differential equations.For scientists and engineers. ... Read more

Book Description

Chemical Kinetics and Catalysis is a comprehensive guide to chemical kinetics and catalysis, and focuses on the use of computational tools for studying chemical kinetics and catalytic phenomena.  Provides a thorough and up-to-date treatment of chemical kinetics and catalysis, combining traditional background information with the latest computational methods for fitting data to appropriate rate equations. Demonstrates how the vastly improved computational tools now available allow application of kinetic concepts to understanding and predicting the behavior of diverse and complex phenomena, including biological systems, semiconductor growth, and corrosion.

• Contains chapters reviewing of kinetic concepts, introducing kinetics via rate equations and mechanisms, explaining the theory of reaction rates (a section on trajectory calculations to simulate reactions), predicting potential energy surfaces (methods for directing the reaction rate), and discussing catalysis with a focus on modifying the reaction rate.
• A useful reference guide, providing the essential basics along with numerous solved examples, problems, and illustrative computer programs.

Reviews (2)

Good Book for Advanced Reaction Theory
This book does a good job of explaining the basis for reaction mechanisms and how catalysts work. The technical level of this book requires students to have at least a couple of advanced chemistry classes, such as physical chemistry, in their background. In summary, buy this book if you are looking to expand your understanding of chemical reactions and have a solid understanding of the basic chemistry principles.

Great content, but hampered by mistakes
Good book for undergrad and grad students who've already had reactor design and p.chem. Much of the theory, in latter half of the book, takes basis from statistical thermo, so p.chem may be useful. As a student w/o such bkgds, overall I find the book to be very clear in explanation. Delivery of material is deliberate and well thought out. Appreciate the use of many example problems. Unfortunately, no solutions for the Problems at end of chapter.

Unfortunately, the book has a ton of mistakes, some simply typos, but some are very critical mistakes in example problems, some of which are very subtle.

Overall, content is excellent for a one seeking some applicable information (1st half), and those seeking more theoretical treatment (2nd half). ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A Classic but dated & expensive - paperback coming soon
In response to questions from colleagues and students i'm posting this review.
This was the standard text many years ago.
Many current topics on mathematical Quantization and Stochastic Optimization are conspicuously abscent.
The publisher is working on a two Volume Paperback edition that will be available shortly, so save your money and buy this 2-vol set for one fifth the price.

A hard but superb book.
Current physics students had less mathematical trainings than those did several decades ago, when computer wasn't popular. So this book is probably too hard to read through and to work on its problems. But if you force yourself, you will begin to appreciate the beauty of mathematics. The chapter about Green's function is escpecially good, never had a so vivid lecture on Green's function before. Actually, when I read this book, I felt Green's function is the kernel and the main bone of this book. It appears almost in every chapter.

The price is pretty high, but if you choose physics as your career, it's worth to have this book, both for academic and entertaining purposes.

THE classic text
The classic text, still excellent, tho' somewhat dated. Well worth having because (a) the physical viewpoint is helpful for theorists and easier for experimentalists, (b) the older viewpoint is different from that of more modern texts, and still worthwhile; multiple viewpoints increase understanding. ... Read more

Book Description

A comprehensive look at learning and generalization theory. The statistical theory of learning and generalization concerns the problem of choosing desired functions on the basis of empirical data. Highly applicable to a variety of computer science and robotics fields, this book offers lucid coverage of the theory as a whole. Presenting a method for determining the necessary and sufficient conditions for consistency of learning process, the author covers function estimates from small data pools, applying these estimations to real-life problems, and much more. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

new approach to inference based on VC dimension
Vapnik and Chernovenkis extended the Glivenko-Cantelli Theorem in their work on classification and statistical learning. Vapnik in recent texts has described a form of nonparametric statistical inference based on approximating functions and the Vapnik-Chernovenkis dimension.

In an earlier book published by Springer-Verlag he develops the basics of the theory. However to keep the mathematical level excessible to computer scientists and engineers he avoided the mathematical proofs needed for mathematical rigor. This text is an advanced text that provides the rigorous development. Although the preface and chapter 0 give the reader a idea of what is to come the rest of the text is difficult reading.

The theory has been quite successful at attacking the pattern recognition/ classification problem and provides a basis for understanding support vector machines. However Vapnik sees a much broader application to statistical inference in general when the classical parametric approach fails.

If you have a strong background in probability theory you should be able to wade through the book and get something out of it. If not I recommend reading section 7.9 of "The Elements of Statistical Learning" by Hastie, Tibshirani and Friedman. That will give you an easily understandable view of the VC dimension. Also sections 12.2 and 12.3 of their text will give you some appreciation for support vector machines and the error rate bounds obtainable for them based on the VC dimension.

Rich & Valuable
This book aims at rigorours and deep treatment of statistical learning and is divided into three parts :

(I)THEORY OF LEARNING AND GENERALIZATION;

(II)SUPPORT VECTOR ESTIMATION OF FUNCTIONS;

(III)STATISTICAL FOUNDATION OF LEARNING THEORY'

For anyone intending to dive into this topic intriguing readers shull find their task rather not simple when exploring this mathematical exposition.This is because of the mature nature behind the basic theory .In order to gain most of the benefit ,interested and even involved researchers are urged and should assume all the requirements for a vast and solid mathematical background.

I Think the book constitutes a respectful and organized 'exhibition' that you will not find in any other place. Althought there are excellent books discussing SVMs and Machine-Learning/ Intelligence,eventually all emenate from the theory.Regarding the book rating it is was not rated upon how much you retrieve as concepts, but how well the propositions offer a precious appreciation of the substantial theory.In otherwords, this book is not the place for a first time learning, but it is serves as a bridge between interrelated elements of such incredibly growing area.

For the book: "The Nature of Statistical learning Theory" also by Vapnik you can find a review by Vladimir Cherkassky in The IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON NEURAL NETWORKS VOL. 8, NO. 6, NOVEMBER 1997 . ... Read more

Book Description

This is the first textbook on social network analysis integrating theory, applications, and professional software for performing network analysis (Pajek). Pajek software and datasets for all examples are freely available, so the reader can learn network analysis by doing it. In addition, each chapter offers case studies for practicing network analysis. The book will enable the reader to gain the knowledge, skills, and tools to apply social network analysis in all social sciences, ranging from anthropology and sociology to business administration and history. ... Read more

Reviews (27)

Excellent book
I never read a technical book from cover to cover except this book. I am holding M.Sc. in DSP and I never understood what fourier was talking about, just swallowing his equations without understanding the idea behind them. His equations were puzzels till I read this excellent book. It is very well written, explained in an easy, obvious and excellent way. The only drawback is that the last chapter (FFT) is not very well explained as the rest of the book, but it doesn't harm it.
If all/most of the scientific books written like this book, science become much more interesting and desirable.
I hope that transnational College of LEX show more scientific books like this one.
The authers and the translator deserve BIG thanks.

The Best Math Book I Ever Read
This is the best math book I ever read. Before reading it I had a vague knowledge of Fourier series (that you could decompose a curve into a sum of simple sine and cosine waves) but I had no idea of the power of this method or its applications. After reading it (several times) I'm pretty well versed (or at least I talk like I am) in Fourier series, Fourier coefficients, discrete Fourier expansions, Fourier transforms and FFTs (fast Fourier transforms), certainly enough to read and understand (in a brief search of the web) applications such as finding buried landmines, identifying aircraft as friend or foe, recovering latent fingerprints, or compressing data to a fraction of the original size.

What impressed me more, however, was that I understood why there are only five vowels in the English language, why an infinite vector space is equivalent to a Fourier expansion, and why Heinsenberg's uncertainty principle makes perfect intuitive sense. This book is nothing if not eclectic, and the range of topics discussed is immense.

If I hadn't already studied calculus and linear algebra in college I would also, for the first time, understand differentiation, integration, vector spaces, Euler's formula, Maclaurin series and the number e, all of which are presented with unusual clarity. This book is a tour de force, a summary of almost everything that is interersting (at least to me) in mathematics.

You have to get beyond certain things when you read this book. Understand that it was written by a bunch of kids and is replete with cartoon characters saying things like "Good grief!" and subbplots in which, for example, the "Non-periodic kid" sends taunting messages to the Magistrate and his constables. I found this obnoxious at first, but later I found it inspirational. If those kids could do it, I could do it. Thus inspired, I read the book three times, until I finally understood it. The Transnational College of Lex has its own theories of leaning, and it looks like they're right.

I cannot recommend this book too highly, or to too many readers. Even (or perhaps especially) if you don't like mathematics, you should check it out. You'll learn something.

DESERVE MORE THAN 100 STARS
THE TRANSNATIONAL COLLEGE OF LEX TOKYO HAS DONE TWO BEAUTIFUL BOOKS,
THIS ONE AND THE OTHER MARVELOUS BOOK "WHAT IS QUANTUM MECHANICS"
WHICH ALSO WORTH ITS WEIGHT GOLD.
I HAVE BOUGHT HUNDERDS OF BOOKS IN MY LIFE AND I FOUND THESE TWO BOOKS
PLUS THE EPISTEIN'S MARVEL "THINKING PHYSICS" ARE THE BEST BOOKS
WRITTEN IN THE ENGLISH LANGAUGE SCIENCE BOOKS EVER.
SORRY BACK TO THIS BOOK ...IN SHORT ...EXCELLENT WORK .
AND VERY VERY PEDAGOGICAL AND STEP BY STEP YOU WILL MASTER THE SUBJECT.
ANY ONE LIKE THIS KIND OF EDUCATIONAL STYLE WILL BE SPELLED BY THE OTHER
GEM I JUST MENTIONED BEFORE FROM THE SAME COMPANY. REALLY WELL DONE,
I ONLY HAVE A LITTLE NOTE ON THE FAST FOURIER TRANSFORM FFT AT THE END OF
THIS BOOK WHICH IS NOT REALLY AT THE SAME LEVEL OF CLEARITY AS THE REST
OF THE BOOK,,SO FOR ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS ...GET EITHER OF THESE BOOKS,
1-UNDERSTANDING DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING
2-THE SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS GUIDE TO DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING
THE SECOND BOOK HAS A REALLY CRYSTAL CLEAR EXPLANATION TO FFT I EVER READ.
THANX ALOT TRANSNATIONAL COLLEGE FOR THESE TWO WONDERFUL BOOKS,
IN FUTURE I WILL BUY ANY BOOK THIS COMPANY WILL ISSUE BLINDLY.
AND I HOPE THEY WILL CONSIDER TO WRITE ANOTHER BOOK ABOUT GENERAL RELATIVITY TO MAKE THE SUBJECT OF TENSORS AND MANIFOLDS AS CLEAR.
THANX 4 READING MY REVIEW.
ENJOY.

DESRVE MORE THAN 100 STARS
the Transnational Colege of Lex Tokyo has done two beautiful books this one and the other marvelous book "what is quantum mechanics" which also worth its weight gold,I have bought alot of books and i found these two books plus epstein's marvel "thinking physics" are the best sceince books writen in the english language ever.back to this book,,,
in short ..excellent work.its very very pedagogical and step by step one will master the subject.

my only note on fourier's book is on the treatment of the fast fourier transform which is not really as good as the rest of the book.
any one like a crystal clear exposition on this please refer to
"the scientists and engineers guide to digital signal processing".
in future i will buy any book transnational co. will issue.
my only hope is that transnational colege next pne will be on the general relativity and will see subject of tensors and manifolds that kind of clearity and understandability.thanx 4 reading my review.

So, who is Fourier?
If you ever watched the entertainment TV programs in Japan, you would understand my review: The dialogs in the book are not only useless, but annoying. [...] After a long time reading the dialogs, then who is Fourier, and where is Fourier's discovery?

The book CAN be written in fewer than 50 pages! It's not as good as an "introductory" Fourier Analysis book, or even a story telling about Fourier's life and scientific discovery. ]...] This book is not a useful book in the real world -- far from that. It's "useful" only when you are familiar with the techniques required to apply Fourier Analysis to the real problems. But then why should I own this book? This is why: Look at the pictures and recall some other books' contents, and then throw it away. As science book for the general audience , it's misleading the readers to a boring playground, where we cannot find any entertaining toys, even if you are there just for fun.

I have read many Japanese books about science, and this one is the worst -- not funny enough to kill time, and not good enough to attract people into the world of such an important science -- the Fourier Expansion of Periodic Wave Forms.

Get the Schaum's outline instead. That will solve your problems quick. It's not funny, but interesting and USEFUL. ... Read more

Book Description

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to complex variable theory and its applications to current engineering problems and is designed to make the fundamentals of the subject more easily accessible to readers who have little inclination to wade through the rigors of the axiomatic approach. Modeled after standard calculus books--both in level of exposition and layout--it incorporates physical applications throughout, so that the mathematical methodology appears less sterile to engineers. It makes frequent use of analogies from elementary calculus or algebra to introduce complex concepts, includes fully worked examples, and provides a dual heuristic/analytic discussion of all topics. A downloadable MATLAB toolbox--a state-of-the-art computer aid--is available.Complex Numbers.Analytic Functions. Elementary Functions. Complex Integration. Series Representations for Analytic Functions. Residue Theory. Conformal Mapping. The Transforms of Applied Mathematics. MATLAB ToolBox for Visualization of Conformal Maps. Numerical Construction of Conformal Maps. Table of Conformal Mappings. Features coverage of Julia Sets; modern exposition of the use of complex numbers in linear analysis (e.g., AC circuits, kinematics, signal processing); applications of complex algebra in celestial mechanics and gear kinematics; and an introduction to Cauchy integrals and the Sokhotskyi-Plemeij formulas.For mathematicians and engineers interested in Complex Analysis and Mathematical Physics. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Good Introductory Book
This was the book that I learned Complex Analysis from. Definitely made the subject accessible to pretty much any reader. Plenty of exercises: some more theoretical, some more applied. It skillfully straddles the gap between being a theoretical math book and a math book for people with more applied aims (such as engineers). Most topics are covered thoroughly, though certain more complicated subjects such as winding number are left out for simplicity.

This book definitely prepared me for tackling the dense, theoretical, and exceptional "Complex Analysis" by Ahlfors. I'd recommend it as an introductory book for anyone trying to get into the subject who is intimidated by Ahlfors, as well as for anyone who is only interested in the essential commonly-applied tools.

down to earth book for people like you and me
I have just finished a class using this book, and on the whole its done a good job. I didn't find it in any way super special or anything, but I could read it and understand it. As far as math books go that is pretty good. Lots of exercises with answers in the back, which is what you need. Usually there are worked out examples of the most standard problems, but not always, e.g. there is no example of residue calculus with a Log function. ... Read more

Book Description

This user-friendly survey of applied calculus prepares readers to deal with the calculus they may encounter while working in business, economics, life sciences, or social sciences. The emphasis throughout is on computational skills, ideas, and problem solving—rather than on mathematical theory. It features numerous worked, annotated, step-by-step examples and an abundance of applications, problems, and exercises for practice. The use of graphing calculators and computers is addressed throughout and web references lead readers to sites where they will find sources of real data for applications, further discussion of applications, further examples of topics, etc.A Beginning Library of Elementary Functions. Additional Elementary Functions. The Derivative. Graphing and Optimization. Additional Derivative Topics. Integration. Additional Integration Topics. Multivariable Calculus. Differential Equations. Taylor Polynomials and Infinite Series. Probability and Calculus. Trigonometric Functions. Basic Algebra Review. Special Topics.For anyone needing a solid introduction to the mathematics used in business, economics, life science, and social sciences. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Get this Calculus text!
This is just the kind of Calculus textbook for business students. It is clearly explained and illustrated with many examples. There are many application exapmles with worked solutions and plenty of exercises to practise.

I used to hate calculus until I got my hands on this book. Its a piece of good work for maths idiots like me! ... Read more

Book Description

This book fills the gap between volumes on wavelets that are either too advanced (in terms of mathematical background required) or that contain too little mathematical theory underlying wavelets.It presents most of the theory underlying Fourier analysis and wavelets in a clear and comprehensive fashion-- without requiring advanced background in real analysis. Provides a careful balance between theory and practical algorithms, and features a clear presentation of applications to digital signal processing--e.g., data compression, digital filtering and singularity detection. Includes illustrations and MATLAB code used in many of the algorithms.Inner Product Spaces. Fourier Series. The Fourier Transform. Discrete Fourier Analysis. Wavelet Analysis. Multiresolution Analysis. The Daubechies Wavelets.For anyone interested in Wavelets and Fourier Analysis. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Informative Book for Wavelet Analysis!!!!
...this book is one of most informative and legible books on wavelt theories and applications.

The author paves the theoretical development about wavelets and multi-resolution analysis EXCELLENTLY. With this book, you can construct wavelets for your own applications in engineering and science disciplines.

This book is very good for first year engineering-majored graduate students and all engineering scholars.

A good Starter on Wavelets
At the time of writing of this review (October 2001), a standard academic search procedure
produces about twenty references per week of scientific papers using wavelet analysis in a very wide spectrum of sciences. More than 160 english language books have been published on wavelets since the first books appeared around 1990. Yet even now it is rare to find a book on this subject which is aiming at undergraduate students and yet is mathematically responsible, without being heavy going. Boggess and Narcovich have tried to do just that, and to my mind have admirably succeeded.
Assuming a standard background knowledge in calculus and linear algebra that many science and engineering students acquire in their first two years at university, they present the basics of Fourier analysis and wavelets in eight brief chapters. To prepare the way, they start in chapter 0 with an introduction to inner product spaces, without using advanced analysis, and building on the experience with ordinary vector spaces.
Also a sniff of linear operator theory is offered.
Chapter 1 introduces Fourier series in real and complex form. These originated in the eighteenth century study of vibrations and in the theory of heat, made famous by Fourier's classic book of 1808: Analytical Theory of Heat. The mathematical claims Fourier made, but which he could not all prove himself, gave the impetus to an enormous development of both mathematical theory and applications in all fields of natural science, which is still going on today. The applications briefly mentioned here are denoising and compression of signals, and finding the solution of partial differential equations. Various aspects of the convergence of Fourier series are dealt with. All concepts are illustrated with a good set of clear figures, and the chapter finishes with exercises that are going from very elementary to a little more ambitious, sometimes involving the use of simple computer algebra tasks. This format is maintained thorugh the entire text, except for the last chapter.
Chapter 2 proceeds with the Fourier Transform, including the important theory of linear time invariant filters. The existence of the impulse response function and its convolution character are shown. As an example the noise reducing Butterworth filter is presented. Sampling and the Nyquist frequency are touched upon, and a derivation of the uncertainty relations, originally coming from quantum mechanics, is given.
To analyse discrete data, one needs the discrete Fourier Transform, which is the subject of chapter 3, including of course the Fast Fourier Transform. Also the z-transform is introduced. Examples given are elementary cases of parameter identification in vibration, numerical solution of ordinary differential equations, as well as in the exercises: noise reduction and data compression.

These first 153 pages serve as a good undergraduate introduction to Fourier analysis.
The second half of the book is devoted to wavelets. Chapter 4 deals exclusively with Haar wavelets which are the oldest wavelets because they date from 1910! These wavelets constitute an orthonormal basis of functions, which makes for fast calucation, a very important aspect for many applications. The core ideas of the central concept of a "multiresolution analysis" of a signal, can be demonstrated with these simple wavelets. All of this is already understandable without the machinery of the preceding Fourier analysis, so you could jump into the book here and start reading about wavelets right away, picking up the Fourier analysis from the first part bit by bit as the need arises. As applications denoising and compression are mentioned again, as is the detection of a discontinuity in a signal.
The general case of a multiresolution analysis is the subject of chapter 5. Again a large part of the discussion can be swallowed without the need of the Fourier transform point of view. The explanation of the structure of a multiresolution analysis leading to an orhtonormal basis of wavelets is straightforward and clear. It is only when we want to go into more detail about the precise characteristics of the underlying wavelet and scaling function that the Fourier point of view is introduced. This then leads up to the presentation of the famous Daubechies wavelets in chapter 6. These wavelets revolutionised the field after their publication in 1988.
Chapter 7 which closes the book, gives several short remarks about various other topics among which are two-dimensional wavelets, and the continuous wavelet transform.
This chapter is more sketchy than the others, and left me much less satisfied. Also the motivation why these subjects are chosen was lacking almost completely, and there are no exercises. I was particularly disappointed not to find any discussion of the relative merits of the continuous versus the discrete wavelet transform, and there is no mention of any application of the continuous case. Yet the latter is also used frequently in many important scientific applications, and it started the modern wavelet endeavour in the early eighties in France.
That being said I still think this is a very useful book for anybody wanting to start with wavelets at an undergraduate level. A few helpful Matlab Codes are collected in an appendix as well as the more difficult parts of some proofs. The exercises make this good course material, but as a text for self study it will also be quite satisfactory for many newcomers that find most of the existing books too demanding. ... Read more

Book Description

An in-depth look at real analysis and its applications-now expanded and revised.

This new edition of the widely used analysis book continues to cover real analysis in greater detail and at a more advanced level than most books on the subject. Encompassing several subjects that underlie much of modern analysis, the book focuses on measure and integration theory, point set topology, and the basics of functional analysis. It illustrates the use of the general theories and introduces readers to other branches of analysis such as Fourier analysis, distribution theory, and probability theory.

This edition is bolstered in content as well as in scope-extending its usefulness to students outside of pure analysis as well as those interested in dynamical systems. The numerous exercises, extensive bibliography, and review chapter on sets and metric spaces make Real Analysis: Modern Techniques and Their Applications, Second Edition invaluable for students in graduate-level analysis courses. New features include:
* Revised material on the n-dimensional Lebesgue integral.
* An improved proof of Tychonoff's theorem.
* Expanded material on Fourier analysis.
* A newly written chapter devoted to distributions and differential equations.
* Updated material on Hausdorff dimension and fractal dimension. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Frustrating
It seems that the higher up you go in the Mathematics curriculum, the poorer the books you meet. In my honest opinion, a book should help you learn and understand the material as quickly as possible. Otherwise, you might as well be given a list of definitions, stuck in a closed padded room and asked to come up with all the theorems by yourself. Unfortunately, there are too many graduate textbooks out there written by individuals who seem to have no desire to make the ideas they are trying to present as clear as possible. There's no educational philosophy. This book falls under that category. For example, this book is almost completely devoid of any examples. I don't know about you, but from example, is how I learn. I could go through this book much faster, if there were some decent examples. You can tell me a thousand times what a sigma algebra is, but if you don't give me some decent, worked-out examples which might tell me why tell me why I should learn it (other than because I'll fail the course), I'm going to forget the definition after 5 minutes. Secondly, it would help if there were more pictures. A picture is worth a thousand words. Third, some of the definitions are not worded as well as they should be. last night I spent ten minutes trying to figure out whether the definition for x-section Ex = {y in Y : (x,y) in E} meant that "for all x," or just "for some x?" It turned out it meant "for fixed x." But nowhere was that little tidbit of information written. Ten minutes may not sound like much, but if you have to read 10 pages before you get to pleasure of spending 10 hours with the homework problems, that translates into a lot of time you could spend doing other things if only this book were presented in a manner which would enable you to learn the material more efficiently. I give it two stars primarily because some of the homework problems aren't too bad. If you have a choice, have a look at Kolmogorov and Fomins book on Real analysis. It's not perfect, but the material in it is organized better. (It's not as DENSE) Plus it's a Dover book, and therefore much cheaper.

Could have been great
I speak as a graduate student in applied math. I really like this book but was bothered by its flaws. Nevertheless, with a good instructor, this text can make for a good learning experience.

Positives: The book is well organized. It builds in a reasonable way so that I could focus on the material in the book and develop my understanding as I went. The book is reasonably well contained. Outside of a reasonable level of basics (a BA or BS in math) the proofs and most of the problems use material developed earlier in the text. I found the book very interesting -- I especially liked the topics presented in the last few chapters.

Negatives: Lots of typos - the author's errata sheet is woefully incomplete. Too few expamples. Too condensed - sometimes to the point of incomprehensibility or even error. The contents of a whole course may be condensed in to a single chapter or even a single section.

Things to be aware of: You should be comfortable with advanced calculus, topology, set theory, and algebra (linear and modern). It also helps to have had some basic real analysis. I highly recommend that you've seen Fourier transforms, Dirac deltas (distributions), and continuous probability. You aren't going to learn these here - you're going to see how measure theory is applied to them.

TOO MANY TYPOS.
Strictly from a student's perspective, this is a good textbook in real analysis. The way the material is presented is logical, whatever that means, and consistent. The author doesn't assume a student knows much and you can never go wrong with this assumption. However, this book has TOO MANY typos, so if you've never seen this stuff before, it's not easy to follow. Don't trust this book. Hopefully, next edition will fix this problem. This is a good book and it can become a classic, but, first, they have to correct all the typos. For those, who want a really good book in Analysis which has no typos, I recommend Rudin, "Real and Complex Analysis".

Great book
What I like most about the book is its concise but broad coverage of the fundamentals of real and functional analysis. Although I am not a mathematician, my main interest is solving various engineering problems using numerical methods. A solid background in real and functional analysis would be necessary for deeper understanding of various numerical methods. I wish I had known this book the first time I felt the need to study basic modern analysis. This books has exactly the material I wanted to learn.

In addition to the theorems and proofs, the author tells you why some theorems are important and how they can be used (of course also in a concise way). I found this type of "hints" are extremely helpful. The historical notes at the end of each chapter are also interesting to read.

Stellar!!Very demanding,but well worth the effort.
Folland's book is extremely terse, but very elegant. It covers topics in great generality. I haven't read the whole book,but the parts I read were excellent. Its a damned hard book, but very precise and conveys a great deal of information. Its certainly not easy reading, it makes the reader (at least it made me) think quite a bit since the proofs are very terse. I think that the amount learned is certainly worth the effort. A classic and one that I would definitely recommend! ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Part of another book
"This booklet ... reproduces chapter 2 of my recent book Visual Explanations ..." (quote from the first page).

The material is outstanding, as is all of Tufte's, but I was very disappointed to pay for something I already had.

Graphs done right vs. graphs done wrong
This is a 31 page pamphlet reproducing chapter 2 of Tufte's 1997 "Visual Explanation:images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative". It contains two case studies: doing it right illustrated by John Snow's famous Cholera investigation and doing it wrong showing charts used to determine the ill-fated challenger accident (could almost be renamed as an example of liing with charts what what to suspect).

Production values are unusually high (which we'd expect from Tufte) with heavy paper, well printed, excellent illustration and color pictures. The pages are large 8.5"x11". The only thing I'm concerned about is the durability of the cover pages (paper back).

Two really good eamples, one good/one bad, of the use of charts.
Low price, 5 stars.

Read his booklet and you will want more from Tufte
In "Visual & Statistical Thinking", Edward Tufte (a professor at Yale University, where he teaches statistical evidence and information design), provides two case study-like topics that explores how graphs and images provide better decision making. This clearly written booklet reiterates his focus on his other books: (1) The task in making decisions based on evidence is understanding how thing work (cause and effect), and (2) making decisions based on evidence requires appropriate display of that evidence. Good charts and images help reveal knowledge relevant to making informed decisions.

This booklet was a required text for a knowledge management course. I recommend this and all his books if you are an information architect, web designer, graphic artist, or anyone who works with providing and displaying data and information to others. Well worth the $$$

A great way to get started on Tufte
Edward Tufte has written 3 big, justifiably famous and well liked books. They're also beautiful and expensive. This is really a booklet, a reprint of a chapter of one of his books, and is a great way to get started on the way he thinks. It explores how graphics were used to track down the source of a cholera epidemic in London -- and how bad chart-making and graphics could have led to the wrong conclusion. The second example in this excerpt explores the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. In this absorbing example, Tufte takes the 13 pages of (badly organized) data that the engineers debated on the night before the space shuttle was scheduled to blast off. Tufte first tears apart the charts, and demonstrates why even though the engineers reached the right conclusion (don't launch), why the data was presented so badly that NASA overruled them (resulting in the Challenger explosion). Then, Tufte rearranges the same data into a couple of clear graphic displays that demonstrate they clearly had enough data to demonstrate that the launch of the Challenger was clearly occurring at grave risk. A great example of clear thinking at work.

OK, so maybe great graphics won't save the world. But this is a good, well priced introduction into Tufte's line of thinking. If you think you might like his stuff, buy this; get hooked; buy the big books.

Warning: this is a chapter of a book you may already have.
Rather than a new work, this is actually Chapter 2 of "Visual Explanations, Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative," and I wish it had been represented as such on the cover. The graphics are his least inspiring. Nevertheless, anything by Edward R. Tufte is bound to be brilliant, so I give this one five stars. As for his other books, there aren't enough stars. My favorite: "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information." ... Read more

Book Description

Superb, high-level study of one of the most influential classics in mathematics examines landmark 1859 publication entitled “On the Number of Primes Less Than a Given Magnitude,” and traces developments in theory inspired by it. Topics include Riemann’s main formula, the prime number theorem, the Riemann-Siegel formula, large-scale computations, Fourier analysis, and other related topics. English translation of Riemann’s original document appears in the Appendix.
... Read more

Reviews (4)

Good complement to Ivic and Titchmarsh
This is by far the book of mathematics that I like most. It's not the most complete source of information about the zeta function, Titchmarsh and Ivic are the authorities. However when you read this book, you have a feeling that you are following Riemann's, de la Vallée Poussin's, Hadamard's, Littlewood's, etc... steps and you understand how these mathematicians must have felt while they studied the zeta function.

It includes a translation of Riemann's original paper (On the Number of Primes...) which is very nice and most authors now seem to forget to mention (mainly because of the obscure way in which it was written).

The first chapter is devoted to the study of the paper, then it is followed another chapter proving the product formula (which was not quite proven by Riemann), then a third chapter of von Mangoldt's proof of Riemann's Prime Formula.

The fourth chapter has the famous prime number theorem and it's original proof by Hadamard and Poussin. The fifth one includes an error estimation due to Poussin for the prime number theorem, and the equivalent of the Riemann Hypothesis in terms of prime distributions.

The Euler-Maclaurin formula is introduced in the sixth chapter to calculate zeros in the critical line.
The Riemann-Siegel formula is introduced in the seventh, and then later chapters include large scale computations, Fourier analysis, growth and location of zeros.

Finally we have my favourite chapter, counting zeros: Hardy's theorem, which says that there are infinitely many zeros in the critical line, which was improved by Littlewood, then later by Selberg, and then by Levinson.

The last chapter is dedicated to some theorems, including an elementary proof of the prime number theorem.

Most important idea: the introduction! It will give you an idea of how these amazing people studied and did math.

New and old.
The popular press leaves us with the impression that math is
intimidating. This wasn't always the case. In my time, the approach to how we teach math went thru cycles: (1) The boot-camp
approach with its endless drills, (2) The New-Math approach, (3) The back-to-basics trend, and (4) The Make-it-Seem-Easy-and Fun approach and the motivational speakers.---Finally Edwards suggests, following Eric Temple Bell, that we rather begin with the classics when approaching a subject in math. It was thought that later books based on the classics had more effective ways of doing it, and few took the trouble of looking at the original and central papers of the great masters. The landmark papers. All the while, they collected dust on the shelves in the back rooms of libraries. Of the classics, the true landmarks, one stands out: It is Riemann's paper on the prime numbers, what later turned into the prime number theorem. It is also the paper with the Riemann hypothesis, still unproved, now generations later. So it is a delightful idea including Riemann's paper, in translation, in an appendix. It would have been nice had Edwards also reproduced the original German text. Now the RH is one of the Million-Dollar problems in math. It is anyone's guess when it will be cracked, but in the mean time, it continues to inspire generations of mathematicians and students. This Dover edition is came out in 2001. The original first 1974 edition, Academic Press, had gone out of print. This lovely book seems still to be a model that we can measure other books against. Edwards' presentation is both engaging and deep, and the book contains the gems in a subject that continues to be central in math, the subject of analytic number theory.

A must for all who are interested in Riemann Zeta fuction!
I have both bought this book and Titchmarsh's one. Both are classics of that subject. Titchmarsh's one is more difficult to read though is even more comphrehensive!. Edward's one is more concise and is more easy to read === One specific point about this book whereas all other books do not have is that it includes the original paper ( in translation) of Riemann's original classic paper. I think this is very important and was neglected by all other books on this subject. From that not only we can have a more thorough understanding to what Riemann originally thinked and developed his famous function and this also serves as a respect to Riemann, one of the three greatest mathematicians of modern times!! ( the other two being Euler and Gauss. Newton, the greatest one of them all was not included as we usually do not include him in these periods)

One of the best book on Riemann's Zeta Furnction
If someone really want to know more in details about zeta function and its deep implication. Either this or Titchmarsh may do. Both books are excellent in this subject. Titchmarsh's book is more comprehensive but more difficult to read. Edward's one is more approachable and also it include some history and makes it more interersting. Anyway, both books are classics on this field. ... Read more

Book Description

This best-selling text by John Taylor, now released in its second edition, introduces the study of uncertainties to lower division science students. Assuming no prior knowledge, the author introduces error analysis through the use of familiar examples ranging from carpentry to well-known historic experiments. Pertinent worked examples, simple exercises throughout the text, and numerous chapter-ending problems combine to make the book ideal for use in physics, chemistry, and engineering lab courses.The first edition of this book has been translated into six languages. ... Read more

Reviews (11)

Easy-To-Read Text on Error Analysis
Many undergraduate students in sciences and engineering must have encountered this experience: You conduct an experiment and collect the relevant data. You are asked to fit your data into a straight line by performing one or multiple linear regression. You are also to present any uncertainty and error in your data as well as calculation. You panic and scratch your head and don't know what's the appropriate procedure to carry out these analysis.

Here comes John Taylor's "An Introduction to Error Analysis", which introduces the study of uncertainties to students. The book assumes no prior knowledge and uses a plethora of pertinent examples (drawn from chemistry, physics, and engineering) to illustrate topics like propagation of uncertainties, random uncertainties, rejection of data, least-squares fitting, and distribution.

This book will save hours of studying and researching on error analysis method. It is very well-written and reader-friendly that lower division students will find it useful.

A gentle introduction to data and error analysis
Taylor's book is simply amazing.

In little more than three hundred pages it manages to explain in a crystal clear manner concepts such as the propagation of errors (starting from simple cases and moving to the general treatment), the meaning of the standard deviation of the population, of the sample and of the mean, the maximum likelihood principle, hypothesis test and confidence levels, the chi squared test and the meaning of correlation.
True, this is not a textbook on mathematical statistic, so you won't find elaborate proofs here: much is left to the reader's intuition. But as the saying goes, 'is not a bug, it's a feature!'. This text makes you understand what all those books on statistics and probability are about (or at least some of their most important applications) and it does it so well that you will reach the end of each chapter asking yourself "oh, that was it?".

Part of the book is devoted to application of error analysis and you will find chapters on weighted means, on the rejection of data, plus linear and nonlinear regression. The exercises are intriguing and all in all this is a very well written book.

Even if you plan to study the matter deeper, on tougher textbooks, please consider preparing yourself to the tougher mathematical stuff by reading this wonderful book. You won't regret it. And possibly, you will come back to it from time to time.

A little off the top, please...
But how much is 'a little'?

I first encountered this book when I was a physics and astronomy major in college, a major that changed over time to include mathematics proper, then political science, then other humanities such as religious studies, history and philosophy. Strange as it may seem, this text has been one of the few constants that has been helpful in almost every field. For physics and any of the natural sciences, the content of this book is highly necessary - be in chemistry, physics, astronomy, geology, or biology, all sciences depend upon observation and analysis, both of which are far from perfect. The task of ever-increasing observational and analytical precision is both an art and a science in and of itself, and one of the tasks of any scientist is to discover where errors might lie.

Interestingly, this also occurs in political science and sociology, economics and history, and even philosophy (logic can incorporate ideas from error analysis, as can epistemology). Error analysis is primarily a statistical tool, and those who have had statistics will find this very familiar. The first part of the book is very simple - Taylor assumes no background, so gives an introduction to the simple reading of charts, graphs, scales and other such things, with plenty of examples. He talks about estimating, significant figures, fractional uncertainties, and how uncertainties can accumulate. How can 2 + 2 = 5? Well, if you round to the highest or lowest whole number, 2.49 and 2.49 will both be rounded down to 2 (under many normal rounding procedures), yet if the underlying calculation or data include the 'real' information, 2.49 + 2.49 in fact equals 4.98, very close to 5. If you think that's confusing, you ain't seen nothing yet...

Taylor's first part concludes by looking at the basics of simple statistical analysis - standard deviations, normal distributions, justification of the mean as best estimate, and a brief introduction to the concept of confidence. Part two gets into more detailed analysis, including least-squares fitting, correlation coefficients, binomial distributions, Poission distributions, and the chi-squared test. The mathematics requirement goes up as the chapters progress - the early chapters only require an elementary knowledge of algeba; as the text continues, knowledge of differentiation, integration and exponential functions are necessary. A first-year course in calculus should be sufficient for easy understanding here; it is possible to get through the material without this background, but it will be more difficult.

This text is designed to be a self-study for the students; it can be introduced in lectures prior to lab work, but can also be used easily for the independent reader to understand. This book is really intended for the physical scientist - most of the examples come from problems in optics or mechanics (physics problems). Useful, helpful, and a good introduction to error analysis.

Read and understand.

Excellent desktop reference
As a professional engineer with a recurring need to crunch large amounts of statistical data, I find that this book is the perfect quick guide to things that forget and don't use that often. If has easy to follow language, and the best part about it is that I don't need to reread the whole thing to get a good explanation of a topic in the last chapter.

I had to knock it down a star because it is a touch out of date. The math is fine, but I wish that there was a companion that explained how to do some of the more uncommon operations using common spreadsheeting or data analysis software. Sometimes, figuring out how to get MS Excel to do what Taylor recommends that I do can be more cumbersome than anything else.

If nothing else, it has a great picture on the cover.

A Classic
I can't believe I'm the first person to review this. Everyone I work with loves this book, it's a classic. ... Read more

Book Description

Continuing on the success of the previous edition, Introduction to Hilbert Spaces with Applications, Second Edition, offers an overview of the basic ideas and results of Hilbert space theory and functional analysis. It acquaints students with the Lebesque integral, and includes an enhanced presentation of results and proofs. Students and researchers benefit from the wealth of revised examples in new, diverse applications as they apply to optimization, variational and control problems, and problems in approximation theory, nonlinear instability, and bifurcation. The text also includes a new, well-researched chapter on wavelets. Students and researchers agree that this is the definitive text on Hilbert Space theory.

* Systematic exposition of the basic ideas and results of Hilbert space theory
* Introduction to the Lebesgue integral
* New chapter on wavelets
* Improved presentation on results and proof
* Revised examples and updated applications
* Completely updated list of references ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Very good book
Lokenath Debnath, like many authors from India, I am finding, write solid mathematical texts. These texts tend to be well-organized, clear, and do not leave out or fail to emphasize important concepts. The proofs are easy to understand. It does not take a week just to read a few pages.

This book by Debnath, is a good example of a book fitting the above criteria. It is an excellent book for self-study of Hilbert spaces, Fourier Transforms and other subjects in Functional Analysis. I found it to be a useful supplement to Folland's "Real Analysis" which I used as a 1st-year graduate student in mathematics. In fact, this book saved me a few times, when I had to figure out solutions to difficult homework excercises. One example comes to mind is a homework assignment (I think that it was out of Folland's book) involving Rademacher and Walsh functions, which are covered in this book. I also found this text for useful in studying for my candidacy examination.

In summary, this book is would make an excellent addition to your library. (If you are also interested in the subject of elliptic functions, then "Elliptic and Associated Functions with Applications" by Debnath and M. Dutta (World Press Private Ltd., Calcutta, 1965), may interest you. It is, like the above text, excellent, but very difficult to find!)

Good book to teach yourself this interesting subject
I'm a statistician who has been using Part 1 of this book to teach myself the basics of Hilbert space theory. So far, I've been very pleased with it.

I've only run into one argument that assumed a fact that wasn't made fairly plain earlier in the development (for Corollary 4.6.1, I had to resort to Rudin's Functional Analysis text to learn why everywhere-defined positive operators on Hilbert spaces are bounded). Functional analysis seems to be a subject where you'll want to have a few different texts on hand in case what one author considers obvious is not so obvious to you!

Nice features of this book include

--an interesting proof of the Banach-Steinhaus theorem that uses a clever Diagonalization Theorem instead of the Baire Category theorem

--an entire chapter introducing the Lebesgue integral and developing its properties without auxiliary concepts such as measure: I found this chapter to be an interesting alternative way to look at the Lebesgue integral. My only quibble with it is that it quotes a version of Fatou's lemma that only applies to functions with limits (almost everywhere). In probability theory, Fatou's lemma is often applied on liminf's and limsup's of functions that don't have limits

--including the Lebesque integral chapter, a total of four solid chapters that develop the theory systematically and clearly enough for careful readers to follow. These comprise Part 1, which I'm almost finished with.

--five chapters with applications. I've only skimmed these, but together they really make this book seem like a terrific value. There's a chapter on applications to integral and differential equations, one on generalized functions and PDEs (e.g. distribution theory), a really interesting looking chapter on Quantum Mechanics, a chapter on wavelets that includes a terrific and concise section with historical remarks and a chapter on optimization problems, including the Frechet and Gateaux differentials, which comprise one of my major motivations for reading this book

--answers to selected exercises (HOORAY!)

This book can be used as the primary text for people who want to acquire a good understanding of Hilbert space theory so that they can use it to solve applied problems: at least, that's how I'm trying to use it! This book is a good value for scientists and engineers.

Great and Clear
Debhath and Mikusinski used great and clear Mathematics and diagrams to explain the theory and applications. I especially like chapter seven "Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics" and chapter eight "Wavelet". This book is suitable for graduate engineering students. ... Read more

Book Description

There can be few textbooks of mathematics as well-known as Hardy's Pure Mathematics. Since its publication in 1908, it has been a classic work to which successive generations of budding mathematicians have turned at the beginning of their undergraduate courses. In its pages, Hardy combines the enthusiasm of a missionary with the rigor of a purist in his exposition of the fundamental ideas of the differential and integral calculus, of the properties of infinite series and of other topics involving the notion of limit. ... Read more

Reviews (10)

What style! This book will live forever.
G H Hardy's book is the pioneer in the field of introducing the formal and rigorous principles of Mathematical Analysis. By Hardy's own admission, the book sprang from the void that existed prior to its publication in 1907.

In a word, the hallmark of this book is "style", and Hardy must be the original style guru as far as Pure Mathematics goes.

The book covers all the essential elements one would expect to see in an introductory course in the subject, namely the notion of a limit and its application to sequences, series, a comprehensive yet elementary exposition of convergence and its use in the definition of functions, differentiation and integration. All of the main theorems of the calculus of the real variable are covered. The latter chapters address the general theory of logarithmic, exponential and circular functions.

Despite the glut of books on the subject of Real Analysis that are on the market, and there are some VERY GOOD ones, this is the classic text that every serious student of Pure Mathematics should begin with. Texts with more general coverage of real analysis such as Tom Apostol's Mathematical Analysis can follow thereafter.

This book is nearly 100 years old. You can bet that it will still be around 100 years from now!

Indispensable reference on pure math
This book is a classic for differential and integral calculus. As welll an excellent book for historical reasons as for the excellent exposition of math.

Best introduction to mathematical analysis
This book is simply beyond any rating whatsoever. Giving 5 stars is to undermine the value of this classic.
The first time I got this book, I was neither aware of it not of its author. I just picked it up randomly from school library. From the contents I figured it was a book on calculus. I immediately searched for the proof that "every continuous function is integrable." This was the first book I encountered which had a rigorous proof of this.
Then I began reading the chapters sequentially thinking that this seems to be a good book on calculus. The book went much beyond my expectation and it satisfied all my mathematical curiousities. All the mysteries of calculus were revelaed. Hardy demystified calculus in the first chapter itself by creating reals out ot rationals.
The Dedekind's construction of reals as presented in this book is the best I have seen. The properties of reals were not stated as axioms (common approach in books on analysis) but rather deduced from those of rationals.
The concepts of functions, limits, continuity, derivative etc. were explained in a prosaic style which has no parallel. This was also my first book on maths which had far more english words than mathematical symbols.
After finishing the entire book I was wondering who was this guy G. H. Hardy who has written such a masterpiece.
Only a few months later I came to know that he was one of the greatest British mathematicians of the century and was responsible for making our Indian Ramanujan famous. After that I read most of his books including "A Mathematician's Apology" and "An Introduction to Theory of Numbers"
Any persons who thinks maths is dull should just read few pages from this book and I bet his old beliefs would be shattered.

1900 yrs from now....
...people will look at this like we look at Euclid's Elements today, it's just one of those immortal books. Hardy starts by constructing the real numbers & then doing all the calculus you'd ever want to know, and with a bunch of math 'trivia' that can't be found anywhere. I can't add much to what the other reviewers have said, except this book has some evil integrals from old Cambridge Tripos exams that would make some Putnam problems look easy. lol At least, if you're only allowed to use real variables (& not complex variables & residues). Get this book for an excellent reference no matter what level you're at.

Much better than any textbook I've ever seen...
This is simply one of the best math books I've ever read. I've never seen any better definitions of limits, derivatives, and integrals. Although the notation is a wee bit outdated and confusing at times (full of phis, psis, deltas et cetera), this book was very easy to understand, which is weird considering I'm only 15, a junior and in Pre-Calculus. But this book means AP Calculus should be very easy for me next year... ... Read more

Book Description

Robert Kuehl's DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS, Second Edition, prepares students to design and analyze experiments that will help them succeed in the real world. Kuehl uses a large array of real data sets from a broad spectrum of scientific and technological fields. This approach provides realistic settings for conducting actual research projects. Next, he emphasizes the importance of developing a treatment design based on a research hypothesis as an initial step, then developing an experimental or observational study design that facilitates efficient data collection. In addition to a consistent focus on research design, Kuehl offers an interpretation for each analysis. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Statistics text for people who understand statistics
Kuehl covers a lot of statistical designs, and provides great examples and practice problems. However, the book is not "user friendly" even for student who have had several semesters coursework in regression analysis. Also, the author tends to change his notation from chapter to chapter without telling the reader, thus creating great confusion. For example "r" or "k" could signify replicate. Some sections are poorly organized. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A good textbook for new learners
This book uses both classical and abstract approaches to introduce Lebesgue measure and integral. It starts with the classical approach and bases its presentation on Euclidean space. This makes it easier for new learners like me since it is more intuitive. In later chapters an abstract approach is also used. I find this repetition natural and helpful. This book has almost no typo. Its exercises are reasonably challenging.

It could be improved in page layout if the end of each proof is clearly indicated.

An excellent choice
This is the book we used when I was a grad student. This is indeed quite a nicely written book: logical progression of concepts, a large number of exercises of varying difficulty (hard ones have hints) and no typos (always a big plus with me). All the classical results are included. My only suggestions to make this book better would be to have some longer discussions of the concepts introduced to break the litany of definition-theorem-proofs and to include historical notes. This would make this book a little bit less dry and an even more enjoyable read. Nevertheless, this is one of the best books on the subjects, better than the book by Royden which is also used by some professors.

a good book for first-year graduate students in analysis
In general I liked this book and thought it had many good problems to learn analysis from. One aspect I did not like is the authors exclusive use of R^n as the underlying space. The proofs would have been alot nicer had they introduced the concept of a sigma algebra over a set. Also, I thought the authors should have provided more information on transforms,since they are very important in engineering. A better book is Rudin's "Real and Complex Analysis" ... Read more

Book Description

An investigation of the geometry of quaternion and octonion algebras, this book is intended for mathematicians, physicists, and crystallographers at any level--from undergraduate to professional--who are interested in the symmetries of low-dimensional space.

The book can also be used as a text for graduate courses in many mathematical fields, including geometry, group theory, algebra, and number theory.

A Selection of Topics Covered:
The geometry of complex numbers
Quaternions and 3-dimensional groups
Quaternions and 4-dimensional groups
The Hurwitz integral quaternions
Moufang loops
Octonions and 8-dimensional geometry
Integral octonions
The octonion projective plane ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Good, but something is better
Conway is an excellent mathematician and an extremely lucid author. No criticism should be given to any of his writings. In the case of quaternions (and octonians), a much better, more complete, and more powerful view is achieved by seeing them in the larger setting of geometric algebra. The geometric algebra gives direct access to all the results and all the geometry of these algebras, and does so in an intuitive and useful way. I suggest that the new book by Chris Doran and Anthony Lasenby called "Geometric Algebra for Physicists" is a better place, generally, to get acquain