Basic Training in Mathematics: A Fitness Program for Science Students

It seems that most negative reviews argue that it has a huge amount of mathematics in a short book, but that is exactly was it was designed to be. As physics students know too well, professors often expect you to know - or at least be able to learn on your own - a certain subset of fairly complicated mathematics that physicists call upon most frequently. This book is WAY shorter than the traditional textbook that we used in my "mathematics for physicists" course, but was infinitely more clear and helpful. This is a book that one can use on their own as needed to truly learn the math being used to simplify or defend a professor as he or she moves through a proof. It's the math they assume you learned somewhere, in a beautifully clear and compact form. Shankar is up there with Griffiths for his ability to make a complex topic clear. Its small and light enough to carry with you wherever. I love love love this book!!!

Excellent read on the tools of mathematics as applied to physics. This is a thorough coverage of a wide range of mathematics one will encounter in physics. This book illustrates the tools of the physicist and is not an introduction to the mathematics of calculus, differential equations, etc. This book shows you the use of those tools and applies those tools to problems to be solved as the text unfolds. I would consider this book as a great reference book to keep for a reminder of the tools one uses. The details of those tools will be learned in classes on calculus, linear algebra, complex variables and differential equations. This book adds to that wider study but would not be the sole source to learn those other subjects.

Shankar is a physics professor at Princeton who teaches mathematical methods to undergraduates, though from this book you'd think he teaches rigourous pure math to math majors. The biggest problem with this book is that every single topic in it is covered in such a way that you're hopeless if you haven't had at least a basic introduction to it elsewhere. I love math but he throws odd notation at you without explaining it, he skips steps and is too brief explaining things. He'll say things like "<thing> is <other thing> because it's <other other thing>" and you're left trying to figure out what one thing has to do with another. Many problems are worded so badly you don't even know what he was asking AND THERE ARE TYPOS. I'm not alone in thinking this, all of my intro physics classmates hated Shankar as it was written in "Shankarese" (not my own term). I've spent hours, in groups with other students, on a single problem simply because we couldn't figure out what was being asked of us. And it's not because it was too complicated, it was just badly worded. Which is all too bad, because when this book is good, it's really good. Some concepts it explains in succinct, rigourous ways that I hadn't seen elsewhere and in those places it has helped me. This book is crying out for a new edition with a new writer who is better at communicating mathematical ideas. (FWIW, I've read about fifty pages of Shankar's quantum book and find it to be orders of magnitude better than this). Because of how good it is in parts, I recommend buying it as part of your mathematical methods collection, but if I were to buy one and only one mathematical methods book I'd get another one.

This was exactly what I wanted and in the best condition

Good Reference book - not a learning book. For learning the mathematics use the following books instead "Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences" by Boas, "Mathematical Methods for Physics and Engineering" by Riley, Hobson, Bence, "Mathematical Methods for Science Students" by G. Stephenson, "Advanced Mathematical Methods for Engineering and Science Students" by G. Stephenson, "Partial Differential Equations for Scientists and Engineers" by G. Stephenson, "An Introduction to Matrices, Sets and Groups for Science Students" by G. Stephenson, "Modern Engineering Mathematics" by Glyn James, "Advanced Modern Engineering Mathematics" by Glyn James and of course the old classic "Applied Mathematics for Engineers and Physicists (3rd Ed.) by Pipes and Harvill.

Simply, a classic! Warning though, one had better be well-equipped in Mathematical concepts, principles, and applications. This is not, as the title infers, a basic training course in Mathematics...Good Luck!

This book expects you to already know and understand what it's trying to teach you. The author glosses over large portions of arithmetic, skipping from one formula to a vastly different one, just by saying "it's obvious" and then moving on. No reasoning, no steps on how to get there, just a chasm to leap over. It even says in the first chapter that, "If you find any portion where you seem to be weak, you must find a book on calculus [...] and remedy that defect at once." If you know what's in the book you don't need it, and if you don't know it won't help you. Find something else if you want to learn.

The cover needs to be fixed! It is showing "An introduction to mathematical finance with applications" in the Kindle store

Its a good intro book to many of the key subject matters needed for for university. Every high school library should have one.

In diesem Buch werden die mathematischen Grundlagen für ein Physikstudium beschrieben. Der Autor schreibt gewohnt frisch und mitunter auch witzig. Es gelingt ihm meiner Meinung nach sehr gut auch die schwierigeren Themen anschaulich zu erklären. Im Text sind einfache Aufgaben eingebunden, die das Verständnis erleichtern. Ich habe das Buch in kurzer Zeit von vorne bis hinten gelesen und alle Aufgaben gerechnet. Für mich war das Buch wie vom Autor beschrieben eine Trainingseinheit in allen Gebieten der Mathematik, die ich während meines Physikstudiums und meiner Arbeit in der Theoretischen Physik benötigte. Auch wenn ich das Buch zum Ende meines Studiums gelesen habe und daher in vielen der beschriebenen Themen schon versiert war, bin ich der Meinung, dass jeder Physikstudent nach dem zweiten Semester das Buch ähnlich zügig und gewinnbringend wie ich lesen kann. Ich empfehle das Buch jedem Studenten, der sich entweder auf eine Prüfung in den Mathematischen Methoden der Naturwisenschaften vorbereitet oder der sich (vielleicht während des Besuchs von Vorlesungen der Theoretischen Physik) etwas unsicher im Umgang mit seinem mathematischen "Werkzeug" fühlt. Das Buch versteht es, einen sehr schnell auf einen Stand zu bringen, auf dem man grundlegende wissenschaftliche Rechnungen anstellen kann. Meine vollste Empfehlung an alle naturwissenschaftlich Interessierten. Wem dieses Buch gefällt, der sollte auch die anderen Werke des Autors lesen. R. Shankar ist ein Meister im Schreiben von Lehrbüchern für den normalen Studenten oder an Physik Interessierten. Ich kann jedem meine uneingeschränkte Empfehlung aller von ihm verfassten Lehrbücher geben. Vom "Basic Training in Mathematics" bis zum anspruchsvolleren aber wunderschönen "Principles of Quantum Mechanics" sind aller Werke ein Genuss für jeden, der sich intensiv mit Physik auseinandersetzen möchte.

The Kindler version is horrible, the pages are all broken and jumping numbers.

Die Kindle-Version ist wohl ein Witz?! Das Buch fängt irgendwo in der Mitte an und danach folgt ein wildes Aufeinanderfolgen von schlechten PDF-Seiten? Sieht mir nach einer mißlungenen Raubkopie aus! Gibt es bei Amazon keine Qualitätkontrolle für Kindle???