incredibly weak character arcs and and story development. the world building is atrocious in every which way. you spend most of the time reading it wondering if it wouldn’t have been better for your mother to have taken plan b. but even when you consider that possibility it dawns on your mind that, no, that wouldn’t have been possible because death would still not have let you escape the torture and torment of having to hear about derivatives and integrals and their relation to rates. death would grant you no reprieve, as this was your punishment in the first place for your past lives. had you never been born in this timeline you would simply have been in a different one with that worlds equivalent of multivariable calculus. you will never find freedom. existence is a prison in your own mind wherein not even satan himself could even hope to create a form of torture more efficient than this textbook. the characters are nothing more than irritations of your every worst trait. every part of yourself that you hate the most—from your deepest, most hidden secrets to your most brutal and savage parts—shows up in here. this book both mirrors the real you and creates a whole new version. you will come out of it hating yourself, hating the world and everyone in it. people will be like pawns to you, but in a game of chess you cannot play. you’re simply a spectator.
I don't appreciate how the book skips over steps in the example problems. I have a hard time with math, so I find it more helpful to see and work through every step. Also, I didn't like how the book doesn't walk through the steps in the 'check your answers' section in the back of the book. Sure, I can check my final number on the odd-numbered problems; but how am I supposed to catch my mistakes if I can't see where I messed up in my process?
I have nearly ALL of the Larson books and just upgraded this one to the 10th edition ($160+shipping+YIKES!). This is THE BEST math book I have on my shelf. Once in a while a book enters my life that changes me for ever. This book (in it's much earlier edition of course) did just that. I cannot recommend it enough.
Never in my life have I read a work so influential with applications in the real world, or has gotten me so invested in the subject matter at hand.
The plot is fantastically written though likely will be too complex for all but the bravest adventurers. You may find yourself optimizing flow rates for an irregularly shaped pool one moment, then flip the page to find you must think about cutting a table in half infinitely many times.
The characters of Calculus rival even those of Shakespeare, Austen, Poe, Dostoevsky or any other famous writer one can think of. From the classic Euler or Newton to the intimidating Lagrange or Ramanujan, Calculus has it all.
This text is excellent as an introduction to the topics - I definitely prefer it over Thomas, and while I like Stewart's, Larson's has such better visuals. I'm not sure why other reviewers find this to be a difficult text - it seems to be the more accessible of the 'Big 3'. True, it's not the most rigorous out there (see Spivak's Calculus on Manifolds), but for students seeking a balanced, comprehensive, and approachable beginning text, I vote for Larson.
Clear examples and problems with personal explanations for exercise problems available on your smartphone and laptop. Extremely helpful system for learning or reviewing Calculus. Buy the ebook now: Calculus with CalcChat and CalcView 11th edition
Comprehensive, detailed, and very excessively in those two regards. This book is super long, but that's how you learn Calculus. I'm going back and reading this book which I used in my BC class last year because it explains stuff much better than the one I currently have to use for Calc 3 in college.
I love most of Larson's books, and this is no exception. Most of his examples are clear, but it is true that a few of them skip steps or take some extra time to understand. Overall, I like the structure, presentation of topics, and practice problems. This was my foundation for calculus and I hope others find this book great for their foundation as well.
Not the easiest book to use at first. The theory in earlier chapters is difficult to follow, and in many cases needs gone through several times before the "aha!" moment. In some cases I didn't get said moment until Calc III, during bits of review. Theory in the latter part of the book is easier, as are the examples, though I'm not sure how much of that is from increased familiarity with both the subject and writing style.
Homework is reasonably straightforward for the drill type problems, but the word problems and proofs can be difficult to set up. Nor are the solutions manuals much assistance in this regard, either because the problem is even and not included, or because the worked out solution skips steps that are not yet obvious to someone only recently introduced to them. They are not useless as study aids because you can still check basic setups for drills and check final answers, but as far as delineating how to work out those problems that are most useful in understanding the material they fall flat.
Not the best source of knowledge. Overly reliant on examples, with very little explanation. Still, lots of interesting problems and some above-average coverage of practical application problems.