![]() ![]() Gouvêa is professor of mathematics at Colby College, where he has taught second-semester calculus more times than he can count. Overall, I don't see a whole lot that distinguishes this offering from the great mass of calculus books.įernando Q. I would have preferred to see more extended discussions of more complicated models. Before applying, you need to check that you have, or are likely to achieve, the right grades at the right level and in the appropriate subjects for the. Many of the problems in the problem sets are labeled in terms of what kind of application they are: to taking a page at random these labels include things like "Allometry" (whatever that is), "Spread of AIDS," "Gasoline Prices," and "Bacterial Growth." (There is an extensive index of these applications.) For the most part, these strike me as real enough, but very simple. The problem sets are more explicitly focused on applications. The contents are probably best described as "applicable": the authors have included those topics that they feel are of use to their students. What makes this "applied"? To be honest, not a whole lot, at least as far as the text is concerned. There is very little theory (the Mean Value Theorem isn't even in the index). ![]() All sorts of asides and "friendly" devices are sprinkled here and there: color pictures, just-in-time asides explaining things such as how to factor a 2 - b 2, instructions on calculator use. It is quite clear that the authors have assumed that the students are either not very "good at mathematics" or not very interested. I don't think this is quite what the authors deliver. The title suggests a book more attuned to the actual uses of the calculus in these areas. So when a book calls itself Applied Calculus for Business, Economics, and the Social and Life Sciences, it is really making big promises. Most calculus courses are from an applied perspective, and most students who take calculus take it because they have been told, by some other department, that they should. ![]()
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