<p>I noticed J. Stewart’s Calculus textbooks are utilized by many US universities. Here in NY, several CUNY schools and Columbia U use it as the primary textbook for their calculus sequence.</p>
<p>But, I also noticed Stewart’s Calculus textbooks are considered mediocre by many people (hey, Amazon reviews and Reddit). The term “cookbook” comes to mind. Other comments mention is great for engineers and will teach one what one needs to know.</p>
<p>Why such disparity? What’s the real deal with his calc textbooks?</p>
<p>I used Minton & Smith Calculus 3rd for calc 1, 2, 3. I use Stewart for vector analysis. So I guess I can make a fair judgment.</p>
<p>Both books are fairly good. The Minton one always include a few hardcore engineering problems as example. Many of the problems require a calculator. The authors are not hesitate with their writings, and I think the wording are very confusing. Overall, I think the book is good as a collection, and not a student book.</p>
<p>The Stewart one is very crystal. It’s reading-friendly and the solutions are very clear (as long as you know what you are doing). It doesn’t show every step like Minton usually does. As far as the engineering examples, Stewart doesn’t go too deep into it. It mentions it, did a few examples when necessary, and that’s all.</p>
<p>However, some of the Stewart problems in the exercise are poorly written. For example, find the equation of a plane without giving a point, but the book’s solution gives an answer that requires some weird calculation even my professor can’t figure it out.</p>
<p>CCNY switched to Stewart since Spring 2010 for all new classes (those previously haven’t taken Stewart one). </p>
<p>Stewart is probably the most well-known calculus textbook on this planet today. Even high school calculus use Stewart’s.</p>
<p>It is great for engineering because engineering only requires cookbook maths. The only relevant reason I can think off is that the people saying it’s ‘cookbook’ are probably mathematics or physics majors, and those students usually need a much more in-depth, almost analysis sort of look at calculus. Michael Spivak’s Calculus is probably the one that people look to the most when you think of ‘best calculus book’ in regards to higher level math. For everyone else, Stewart is ‘the best’.</p>
<p>I’ll likely get the Stewart book since the school lists it as the recommended gext but I’ll probably also require a more reliable calc book for cross-reference.</p>
<p>What exactly do you mean by more reliable? Stewart is the best for what you need, if you want next tier you’re looking into calculus from an analysis perspective. There are others, like Thomas’ but… eh, cross-reference can easily be done online with something like Paul’s Notes or something. No need to waste money on another calculus book.</p>
<p>Stewart’s Calculus book’s are pretty awesome in my opinion. UC Berkeley uses them for engineering/scientists calc 1,2, and 3 (math 1a, math 1b, and math 53). I learned a lot from those books, but yes, like others have said, I doubt it is a very good math major book, but hey, that’s what Numerical Analysis is for, right?</p>
<p>Probably a wrong choice of word. I meant having good reference textbooks that I can go back to anytime I need a knowledge refresh. I will certainly get my “feet wet” in advanced calculus, but only as a personal hobby (I’ve read Courant is the best option for this, no?)</p>
<p>My concern about Stewart’s Calc is related to something R. Feynman once expressed about “popular textbooks used in universities being mediocre” or something to that effect. But, any modern intro calc textbook will probably give me more than what I need. Stewart shouldn’t be any different, I hope.</p>
<p>Btw, I just found out a professor at MIT, G. Strang, offers his intro calculus book as an electronic book, for free!</p>
<p>Courant and Spivak would be a good choice if you wanted to dive into analysis. I’m guessing this is not what you want. For this reason, I would say if you’re not familiar with learning calculus that way that it would not make a good ‘handbook’. I have a Stewart book for a quick reference, it includes calculus 1,2, and 3, plus very very basic DiffEq. I got my copy for 2 dollars off Amazon because I bought the 4th edition. They’re all the same, chapters are switched here and there and so are a few problems.</p>
Well, I believe we had this discussion a few months ago about selling engineering books, and we all agreed that we usually don’t because those books become our primary references.</p>
<p>I think Stewart is find as a reference book. If you just want plain math reference books, get books like Fundamental Formulas of Physics. </p>
<p>If you are referring to seeing examples… then textbook is probably the only opotion.</p>
<p>I usually google a few PDF on various of subjects, like calculus, physics, computer science…</p>
<p>My Calc III professor refers to Stewart’s book as “average”, in terms of calculus books, all of the time.</p>
<p>I, personally, can’t stand Stewart’s book very much. Chock full of problems, for sure, but the book is a little lacking in problem solving methods. I also can’t stand reading Stewart’s writing. Some math books I can read quite well, Stewart’s isn’t one of them.</p>
<p>The Calculus book I had for Calculus I,II & III was by C.H. Edwards and David Penney back in the late 1980’s. My classmates called the authors the “masters of confusion”. </p>
<p>Since then I have purchased Strang’s book (I wanted the actual hardcover so I bought it) and I wished I had Strang’s Calculus book when I was an undergrad. It is very clear with a more interesting writing style.</p>
<p>It’s weird because Strang is known more his Linear Algebra books than his Calculus books.</p>