Recent content by ghostwind

Yes, I can imagine the early edition of Thomas and even Stewart were probably a lot better. But I've already settled on Spivak and like it just fine. Remember, for me, this is more review as I've taken a lot of math before and done well. But I want something more heavy to supplement the...

Here's a very good read on the history of math education in the US over the last 100 years, and why we are where we are today. http://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/CUPM/pdf/MAAUndergradHistory.pdf

A very good article I came across. Worth reading, and then we know why the US is where the US is.. http://www.ams.sunysb.edu/~tucker/monthlytucker.pdf

Do you guys think it was a mental "wall" one hits or more maybe lack of equally rigorous courses before that for a good preparation? This is the part I *still* can't figure out for myself, but as I was saying, I do think the courses I took before were a bit too easy and computational based, and...

In reading some stuff on this forum and about general math education in the US at least, I'm curious as to others' experience with math and when it "got hard" for them. People here I assume are mathphiles and love math. They've done well, math came easy, etc. I include myself in this category...

Only he can say if he likes Apostol's style or not. I do see this criticism of Apostol (i.e. that he's dry, etc.), but I think he's OK. Clearly there is a contrast to Spivak who's more verbose and "fun" in a good way, but both cover ground, though Spivak is all theory and no applications at all...

Whew! One busy summer! So let me try to summarize at least what I understand so far, and what I would do in your situation given I understand it correctly: 1. You have taken Calculus I & II using Stewart's book, which you were fine with, but felt it/the course wasn't as rigorous or in-depth as...

It's perfectly fine as long as you have Calc I-II under your belt. I took Calc III and Linear Algebra honors in the same semester back in 1993, and was no issue. My issue now is finding good books for reviewing all I forgot :)

I prefaced it by saying IMHO, so it is an opinion. And from all the intermediate books I've seen, which have been quite many recently, Simmons' stands above them all. Lang is a bit sloppy and rushes through things at times - Simmons is a better writer. I said either is fine though - this is...

No, that's overkill! As I was saying, there are 3 main categories of books universities and high schools use -> the 1000+page ones with tons of examples, very computational, new editions every other year, etc. (Thomas, Stewart, etc.), the "intermediate" ones which seem to balance things somewhat...

The answer to your question is, it depends on what HS you go to. To try and create a common curriculum across the country, the Common Core was created, but that has proven to be problematic and I'm not sure helpful. You can read about it and see how the state I'm in (Massachusetts) will do away...

After myself asking somewhat similar questions, and looking through these books, I agree with this. I put Lang in the "intermediate" textbook category, as I was saying above in my post, along with Simmons, which is not discussed here very much, but extremely well written. Having looked at both...

It's a sad state of affairs in the US. I wasn't original in my thought. I had heard that argument before being made. A thread on this forum here: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=312799 Maybe the focus in fixing the system needs to be first in quality not quantity. Then focus on...

OP, take a look at this thread I made: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=758357 I believe the problem is again with the Stewarts and similar types of computational books, which seem to have been watered down with each new edition. Intelligent students will want more - they will...

How much calculus did you take and what textbook did you use in school?