University Calculus: Elements with Early Transcendentals

by Joel R. Hass, Maurice D. Weir, George B. Thomas Jr.

University Elements is a three semester, short early transcendentals science and engineering majors calculus book. It maintains the high standards and careful development that have been the hallmark of the Thomas’ Calculus series, but this text follows a bee line to the essential elements of calculus. This text is designed for those instructors teaching an early transcendentals course who want a short book that covers everything in their syllabus with none of the verbiage and weight of the larger books.

Genres: Textbooks

944 pages, Hardcover

First published February 24, 2008

Reviews

[Jesse Santangelo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't taken a look at other calculus textbooks but I liked this one. It was clear enough that if I didn't understand something during the lecture, I could look it up in the book and I didn't have to strain my brain too hard to understand it. Everything is neatly organized, there are a lot of pictures to help you visualize, but not too many. I had to read a certain physics textbook recently and I was constantly trying to figure out what was going on in the pictures, or if the picture was even relevant to the topic I was currently on. This is not that book, the pictures are not excessive or confusing.

The only problem I had with the book was that after the 8th chapter (where calculus 3 at my school starts) the order gets a little weird. Reading in order will probably work fine but my professor chose to teach completely out of order - we went through the first few sections of each chapter first, to get all the basics done at once, and then we went into more complicated things, out of order again. I'm not quite sure what order we went in, but it made sense to me, and looking at how I would have learned things if I had gone in order, I'm glad I did it that way.

[Tallarico · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hate Calculus. This book is ok, I guess.