Which textbook is better for engineering students: Kreyszig or Boas?

[ajayguhan]

Which textbook explain concepts with more intuition and in comprehensive manner for engineering students?
Advance engineering mathematics by Erwin kreysizg
Or
Mathematical methods in physical science by Mary l. Boas.

 

[SteamKing]

Kreysig is more mathematically oriented and the problems use hardly any physical examples. Boas uses many more examples from physical science to illustrate how to use various mathematical techniques.

 

[ajayguhan]

What about content, i mean which covers a wide area of subject?

 

[Mark44]

I have an edition of Kreyszig from the early 70's but I don't have Boas's book, so I can't give a comparison. Even so, I don't think you could go wrong with Kreyszig's book.

 

[SteamKing]

Kreysig starts off with vectors and linear algebra, IIRC, then moves into differential and integral vector calculus, covering multiple integrals and the basic vector calculus theorems like Green and Stokes. Complex variables and their calculus are also covered, with topics like the residue theorem and conformal mapping getting some attention. Kreysig covers a few elementary topics for things like harmonic functions, but to no great depth as I recall. There is some refresher treatment for ODEs and a start at PDEs. I think some of the later editions might cover an introduction to topics like finite elements, but I can't say for certain. I believe I have the 6th (red cover) and seventh (tan cover) editions from the 1970s and a later (perhaps ninth or tenth edition) from the 1990s. The two earlier editions are very similar, while the more recent edition was overhauled quite a bit in terms of content and organization.

 

[ajayguhan]

What about Mary l boas? I think she's trying explain fundamental concepts with more intuition while kreysig covers wider range in a depth but with less implementation of how to use it concept in practical

 

[thegreenlaser]

I don't have them on hand so I can't remember exactly how the content compares, but I've used both books at various times and I was happy with them both. If you can afford it, they're probably both worth getting. I personally find I learn math best when I can bounce back and forth between the perspectives of a few good authors.

 

[cxcxcx0505]

Boas is much more better than kreysizg. Last time during my degree, kreysizg was used for my engineering course. Engineering Maths is very hard compare to calculus. The advanced engineering maths by kreysizg did'nt help much in my study and understanding. Boas is very different. Even though I already graduated, I am still self-studying Physics using Boas. It covers much more topics than kreysizg and the explanation by Boas is very good.

 

[Sentin3l]

Looking at my copy of boas, it covers:
Infinite Series
Complex Numbers
Linear Algebra
Multivariate Calculus (Derivatives and integration)
Vector analysis
Fourier Series/Transforms
ODE's
Calculus of Variations
Tensor Analysis
Special Functions
Series solutions of diff eqns using special functions
PDE's
Complex analysis (residues, conformal mapping, etc.)
Probablility

 

[ZapperZ]

Please note that her chapter on Calculus of Variation alone is worth the price of the book!

Zz.

 

[gravenewworld]

I'm looking at Kreyszig as I write this since our class is using it. I prefer another book that I checked out from our library. Kreyszig is a bit more theoretical, but as an engineer, I want concepts reinforced with many more concrete examples. If Boas offers more examples, then I'd go with that personally. I'd much prefer an engineering math textbook to have something like Gauss' divergence theorem stated and followed by many physical examples. We should leave the proofs to pure mathematics textbooks, math classes, and mathematicians.