Derivative and uncompelling
356324
America was formed by Dan Peek, Dewey Bunnel and Gerry Beckley, three US military brats living in London. America generally sounds like either a third rate Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young or Barclay James Harvest (who were all ready a second rate Moody Blues) without any new ideas of their own. This 1975 compliation does however have the advantage of collecting all of their hits without wading through some of the painful filler on their individual albums.
3189773
I purchased this book as a study aid for students I am currently teaching German to and, although the author is from Germany, I was quite surprised to see some 'minor' mistakes, which I am sure a lot of German learners out there who have this book might have already spotted.  When one is talking about nationality, religion or profession in German, like many other Germanic languages, the indefinite article is not used unless an adjective appears before the noun.  Note:  "sie ist Kassiererin" (she is a teller) NOT "sie ist 'eine' Kassiererin", "er ist Sicherheitsbeamter" (he is a security officer) NOT "er ist 'ein' Sicherheitsbeamter", etc.  Fortunately these mistakes disappear in later chapters (maybe I'm just too fussy).  Otherwise a very useful resource for those in the beginning stages of learning German.  I merely wanted to point this out to complete beginners of the language who might not already know this.
4894484
We are using this text for my 400-level Real Analysis class.  Having survived some terribly written texts, I appreciate the readability of this text, but I am finding lots of little spelling errors, sometimes even worse.  More troubling, in terms of editing, is that whoever digitized the book occasionally seems to have gotten symbols wring, or orders wrong.  For instance:

Definition 1.3.4: A real number a_0 is a maximum of a set A if a_0 is an element of A and a_0 =<a for all a in A.  Without having the benefit of subscripts and a proper less than/equal to sign--"a_0" is "a naught" and "=<" is "less than or equal to"--that is the definition verbatim.  Because of sloppy editing, I have a textbook that is telling me that a set may have elements greater than the maximum element.

Otherwise, I find the book to be the most readable math book I've ever had.  The homework exercises are appropriately challenging.  One thing that I really like with this Kindle edition is that when past theorems and definitions are invoked, there is a hyperlink.  There is also a handy search function.  All in all, I'm really very happy with the book and have no problems using it for my class.  My only issue is with the editing.
1175224
The translation is acceptable, if occasionally strained. However, there appear to be OCR problems with the Ebook version in separating the alpha- and beta- plotlines. I will be getting the printed version instead to double-check this, but if so, this is a bit of a problem.
3768077
Wording used in this book is quite advanced for not native english speaker. It would't be a problem, but there is some technical issue with this book and I can't use english dictionary with it.
4937652
This is good information for the use of grammar in the English language, however, sometimes the auhtor talks about dos and donts without giving concrete examples. This make it hard at times to see how a rule is applied.
4951762
I really, really like this dictionary. It is easy to read, simple to understand, and very useful for my classes. There is one significant problem.
Pages 911-942 are repeated twice, and pages 943-974 are missing entirely (end of 'T', all of 'U' and beginning of 'V')
I purchased this new from Amazon so clearly this is a binding defect. I don't know how common this issue is, but I will be returning it.
4363442
This book is light, easy to understand and enjoyable. I was going to say 'easy to read' but that isn't totally true. There are numerous errors where I had to stop, re-read, and figure out what the correct word should be. It interfered with my relaxation after a long day at work.
2844221
Or for anything else for that matters. I sold it nearly as fast as I bought it. It fails to explain limits, fails in giving a proper definition of the derivative. The problem is not in its lack of rigor, that is acceptable for many non-mathematicians who need to just learn or use the calculus as a tool. There are better choices out there.
1342627
I haven't had to use this yet, but am glad to have it for reference. I've had other verb conjugation books produced by this company so I feel confident in giving this book a five-star rating. Thanks.
826444
The author doesn't believe in commas, and there's a new edition out now. Amazon's website didn't find it for me, so I'm kinda mad at Amazon for selling me this based on my search without showing me the new version.

Still, a great book so far. I have needed to read other articles online about some of the topics covered, since the author is obviously some kind of engineer (a man of few wasted words).

I'm reading it for a class at Uni.
4258060
It's a good thing Kindle includes an easily accessible dictionary. The author's affectation for the longest and most obscure words possible makes for a difficult read. In fact some of his words aren't even in Kindle's dictionary. I call this an affectation because his grammar is inconsistent: sometimes "neither...nor" but other times "neither...or." I finished it but found most other Kindle Unlimited mysteries more enjoyable.
1038354
The authors make a very strong, and successful, attempt to motivate the key tensor calculus concepts, in particular Christoffel symbols, the Riemann curvature tensor and scalar densities.

The first 238 pages of "<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Tensors-differential-forms-and-variational-principles/dp/0486658406/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Tensors, differential forms, and variational principles</a>", by David Lovelock and Hanno Rund, are metric-free. This book is very heavily into tensor subscripts and superscripts. If you don't like "coordinates", you won't like this book. Here's a round-up of the chapters.

Chapter 1 (17 pages) has some interesting examples which demonstrate how tensors arise naturally, namely the (symmetric) stress tensor in elasticity, the (antisymmetric) inertia tensor for rigid bodies, and cross-product vectors (which arise in electromagnetism). Also discussed are vector components and the properties of determinants.

Chapter 2 (36 pages) presents "affine tensor algebra in Euclidean geometry", which means basic tensor algebra in flat Euclidean spaces, including non-linear coordinate transformations. There's a very interesting explanation of how a metric tensor and Christoffel symbols naturally arise in flat space when parallel vector fields are subjected to non-linear transformations.

Chapter 3 (47 pages) introduces manifolds (using an atlas of charts), including tensor algebra on manifolds and the derivatives of tensor fields, where once again the Christoffel symbol is introduced to make the derivatives tensorial, thereby motivating Christoffel symbols. Then there's more on absolute differentials (i.e. covariant derivatives) of tensor fields, the effects of multiple covariant differentiation (which motivates the definition of Riemannian curvature), parallelism on manifolds, and properties of the Riemannian curvature tensor.

Chapter 4 (29 pages) has some miscellaneous tensor calculus topics, namely scalar densities (with transformation-invariant integrals), normal coordinates, and the Lie derivative.

Chapter 5 (51 pages) is about differential forms, including exterior products, the exterior derivative, Poincar's lemma, systems of total differential equations, the Stokes theorem, and curvature forms.

Chapter 6 (58 pages) is concerned with "invariant problems in the calculus of variations".

Chapter 7 (59 pages) introduces Riemannian geometry. This includes Finsler spaces and Riemannian and pseudo-Riemannian spaces. Topics include geodesics, Riemannian curvature tensor properties in the presence of a metric, and a divergence theorem for Riemannian manifolds.

Chapter 8 (33 pages) is titled "invariant variational principles and physical field theories". This includes Lagrangians, vector field theory, metric field theory, and Einstein's equations.

The authors have made great efforts to explain and motivate everything.
1368190
Not sure if it is copied from its original text or just poorly copied. Several grammatical and syntax errors. Makes me curious about the translation and accuracy of the included content. Hopefully I can get an answer on this because I'm considering a better published replacement.
1821430
There are many singular definitions of terms without explanations or examples. But overall the text is well laid out and it covers the material professionally.
4222464
This book is being given an unearned bad name. I don't know for certain why, but I could speculate if I were feeling uncharitable.

In truth, this book does a fine job of laying out this subject point-by-point, complete with formulas, examples, practice problems, and then EVEN MORE examples, just in case you missed the first ones, followed by actual homework problems.

I was assigned to teach this course having never taken it myself, which means I was forced to teach myself the subject so that I could teach it to a class of 70 students. With only the book and no other personal instruction, I was able to learn the material and teach it well enough to feel very comfortable with the material and to get very good student reviews.

This is a testament to the clarity and completeness of the book, rather than my own innate understanding of the material, which was extremely limited.

If I had to name a criticism of this text, I would say it is too monochromatic. They need to throw in some more color to break up all the green.

Also, I think this book is too expensive. I would have an easier time justifying using this book for my class if it were, say, $90, instead of $130+.

Still, I like it at least as well as the other texts publishers keep sending me, and better than most.

4/5 stars for bland green look and high price.
491918
One comment-the use of the word "mater" repeatedly instead of matter was off putting. Also, several times the word off had only one f making it necessary to insert the letter by  one 's self.. I do enjoy proper usage. Perhaps a more precise bit of proofreading is in order. Thanks for a great read.