I've a 5th edition of the book. It has answers to almost all of the problems. I think they start to offer only answers to odd(or even) problems in the 6th or 7th editions. If you self-study calculus, get a copy of the 5th or earlier edition to get all of the answers. The 5th edition was printed in two colors. It was a gem. Put a copy on your bookshelf for handy reference.
I still have the 6th edition that I used way back in 1987. I can't believe I missed it by one edition. So, the change happened a LONG time ago, it seems.
I worked problems from this book over the summer between high school and college. It is a good book. I still have it 44 years later. The Spanish function notation reminds me of Russian notation.
In the late 1960s I lived in a very rural and poor part of se Ohio. As a freshman in hs I figured out calculus on my own with this book. The answers were instrumental. Over the length of high school I figured out 2 years of college math and started out as as junior in college. I had no help in studying the subject. Now that I am close to 70 years old I found out a very valuable lesson. To study math or the sciences professionally, one has to be invited in. I was not invited in and had a successful career in engineering.
I had a chance to teach Chemistry Lab to majors and non-majors. Pre-med students were the worst since they didn't care because they knew they would never use it again. Engineering students were the best because it was another world even though they would never use it again.
You had a lot more IQ points than did I. I was a mediocre science and math students in HS, and just managed to fumble my way through trig. Circa 1990, I decided I could do better than that, so at age 40 I went back and took math classes through two quarters of regular calculus, and got 4.0 grades. The third quarter of calc I dropped out, then went back and took it again, and again couldn't complete it. That was the end of my math studies, I figured I had done all my intelligence would allow me to do. Circa 2019, I took a computer machining class. The TA for the class was a third year engineering student. When I related the anecdote above on my math studies, he told me he had taken third quarter calc THREE times before completing it properly! I was impressed ---I didn't have enough courage to do that, and figured I was just limited out on IQ points. I recall a third quarter calc teacher lecturing the class --- saying that he expected a SOLID HOUR of study for every class day to keep up. I was spending THREE hours a day to keep up! Pretty much every math class had someone complaining "WHY do we have to study this?" That was until calc ---and after that no one asked that question any more. As a marginal math student, I can compare math study in the mid 1960s with that in the early 1990s. Computers and graphing calculators were a great aid for me in being able to visualize equations by graphing them on a computer or calculator. I figure that computers have made it possible for marginal math students to learn more math because of that.
@@SeattlePioneer I think one of the biggest shifts in being able to learn decades ago versus now is the internet. Back when, what you had was what you had & if your teacher was mediocre at teaching something & the books were less than helpful then that was it. Today on almost any subject some one some where has uploaded material & in some cases will actively respond to inquiries on problems so an eager learner has resources at their disposal undreamt 40 years ago.
@@JohnBrown-wk4io > I agree. That's an enormous resource. Schools should be restructured to take advantage of it, but of course schools are among the backward institutions of society.
A commenter on another video mentioned that the 4th edition was the best, because it included derivations of Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion, and because later editions were dumbed-down for less prepared students.
I just bought the 3rd edition on Amazon to go along with the 13th edition of Thomas' Calculus that I have per your advice. Thank you very much for suggesting this. Really like your videos and the information you provide.
We used the newer version in my community college class, but it’s always shocking to see the older editions of these modern textbooks that always seem to have a new edition every so often but don’t even really change from year to year.
When the edition remains unchanged the supply of used textbooks cuts into the publishers profits... Auto companies change their offerings each year for the same reason.
@@rickhole You get it. The price of the used ones also plummets to literally cents sometimes. This is why you always buy the older editions OR the international versions, publishers also charge other countries less for the same book and yes, the text is still in English.
@@sws212 Textbooks, especially in the US, show the "planned obsolescence" that Alfred P Sloan introduced to the automobile industry. It served Detroit well until they came up against foreign competition. I forget who it was who said "What's good for General Motors is good for America." I have my doubts about that. The great innovation on the obsolescence front is that new textbooks come with a subscription to a related website for one year only. You think you need that to keep up with the rest of the class.
I have the 4th edition. It was the mainstay of first year engineering in 1970s. The sections on Fourier transforms and complex numbers are really important for the study of electrical engineering.
I was just browsing around RUclips and I saw your video. I'm pretty sure I used this book in the early 80's, it was purple and thicker. But what caught my attention was the older book here, because it looked to be the same vintage and maybe title as the book my father used in college in the early 50's. We had the book for a long time, but unfortunately I don't have it anymore. I think in those days they didn't learn so much math in high school, so that might explain why that book had the unusual content it had. He was an engineering major, and other math books he had included a book on Trigonometry. The older books looked like they were harder to read, they didn't bother much with pretty sections, illustrations, etc. I still have my father's 18" wooden slide rule that came in a leather case, some old drafting instruments, and tables of logarithms and the like which were much more detailed than the ones I could find myself when I needed them. 20 years or so ago I took the whole series of Calculus courses again (sorta for fun), and the main thing that changed is that I had to learn how to use a graphing calculator.
I have the fourth edition in my library. We were using it in high-school Calculus in 1983-1984, but switched to a newer edition in the spring. I don't know which version, but only half as thick with less content. I asked my teacher if I could "lose" my book instead of turning it in; he let me and only charged me $1 for the cost. Best deal I've ever gotten!
As a teacher I appreciated having answers for only half the problems. I would assign homework with some without answers to see the students mastery and others with answers to build their confidence. Publishers provided an answer guide with all included but available to teachers only .
Most texts have ample number of problems so someone self-studying still has plenty to checkable exercises. I think if I were still teaching I would give two assignments, one with a mix of answered and another all unanswered and give bonus points for those. At least try that for one semester. I would post on my office door solutions to the unanswered problems after the assignment was closed, or cover them in the next class.
Yes, that is the reason, except my students always demand to see answers to the other half as well. I am tired answering emails 'I solved problem 3.22' (even) - where can I find the answer ? Given that most answers for classical texts can be found online now, even/odd split is not greatly useful. I would more appreciate a separate bank of problems, which are not in the textbook
@@dmitripogosian5084 I assume you have the teacher's answer booklet with all the answers. If you prefer your students to have access to the answers you could provide them in class before or after the assignment is complete. I would post them on my office door after they had turned in their homework.
In high school, they always had two versions of each book. The Teacher's version would have all the answers, even often working them out. But the student versions were always like this, with only odd answers. I believe the idea was that the teacher could assign even problems without us being able to get the answers, but we could still get help on the similar odd problems.
Yes, that’s right. I remember my teacher have the teacher version with all the answers. The students were assigned homework from the even-numbered problems.
While I used the 1965 Thomas work for three semesters between 1967-68 (up to calculus of several variables), I did find the treatment of LIMITS to be severely wanting, in that I was never quite able to grasp the concept of limits and continuity. The Pearson edition, OTOH, begins with a review of basic function topics (algebra, composition, and transformations of functions), and does a rather superb job with limits and continuity.
Know that I think highly of you math sorcerer. I am very close to having my second degree complete. Math is really not a huge interest in my life at this time But do know that I see great wisdom and effort being put forward with your channel. I did subscribe to your channel over a year ago to support your work. Have a wonderful winter time, my dad and I are actually going to Johnson city Tennessee very soon to walk along the Appalachian trail. December 16.
Thanks for the post ! I've always been fascinated by mathematical formulas but not very good at math. I recent started teaching myself some of the basic language's of Calculus, Quantum Physics and Geometry.
...Being born in 1957, I grew up with technical books like this in high and college. Now I collect (as a hobby) them for my own private library. Thanks for the video.
When I was in (high) school - 60+ years ago - I remember text books like this. The student version had answers to odd numbered questions, but the teacher version had answers to them all.
Not all of the answers were correct though. I remember some frustrations that were only resolved by asking the professor to work the problem and having him admit that the answers in the back of the book was wrong.
I had a wonderful and unexpected run in with this book (3rd Edition) today! I was driving upstate to go hiking and drove past a house with 4 old wooden sheds and a homemade sign that said "All books .50 - $1, self serve always open". The sheds were filled with shelves of all kinds of books you can imagine, and as luck would have it, there was even a small math section! There were a few interesting finds, like "Arithmetic for the Modern Age" by Aaron Bakst, but this book by Thomas caught my eye immediately. I love self studying from the older books, and I'm stoked to have this one in my collection now. I usually browse ebay and abebooks, but today, the math gods brought me to a few sheds way out in the middle of nowhere to get 900 pages of math for one dollar :)
I did 2nd year Pure Maths in the early seventies and when I saw your video, it blew my mind that it's still around and being reviewed by yourself. Looking at your comparison, I think I still prefer the older edition - but who knows? maybe I'm nostalgic? :)
Calc is really enjoyable IMO. Really brings out the beauty of math. I'm not a mathematician and only took Calc one at a university, before I ran out of funds, but absolutely had a great time with Calc.
tg, ch, sh are all continental European notations. I grew up in Montreal but went to a French high school from France and this was the notation. French speaking Quebecois are Americanized and thus use sinh, tan etc... Text book in French in Quebec are often translations of American books because of the mismatch especially pre-1980 between mathematics in French Lycées and Quebec high schools. (Far more abstract math in France: delta, epsilon, number theory, abstract vector spaces, etc... all over the place in French high schools.). Also in France, [a,b] means a closed interval. If it is open on the left, it is ]a,b]. ]a,b[ for example is less confusing than (a,b). Finally in French, German and Japanese, a field (R, C, etc...) is called a "body" (corps,Körper and 可換体 ) so it is less confusing. Chinese use 域 which is more like region but their vector field is 場 as in Japanese. (field!) (I live in Japan)
When you just love math just because of how beautiful the notation is😁..and when youve work for 40 hours on math problems and you can hear the blood flowing in your brain😁
I used various editions of Thomas in high school and college (the 1970s and 80s). We had the answers to the odd problems in the back. In college we could buy the solutions manual, which showed how to work the problems.
I have a 13e Thomas (the non-early trans version) that Im using to teach myself calculus ahead of taking the course. The book my college uses is the Larson book. I thought about getting an older version of that book, but Thomas was cheaper (i found my copy for $26 on Amazon and its in pretty decent condition) and Ive heard more about it. Another book I picked up recently is Calculus by Morris Kline. Its a very fun book to read and has nice exercises. Its in print, but its a reprint of a text that was last revised in 1975. So its interesting to see how Calculus textbooks were written 50 or so years ago.
@@TheMathSorcerer I request that you do a review of the Calculus (An Intuitive Approach) by Morris Kline. It's a book I am super keen to buy. Have been watching all your reviews and been loving them! Oh and lastly, as others have pointed out if you could do a review on the Calculus book by George Simmons, it would be great. :) Much gratitude.
Excellent book. We used this as text for one of our 1st year engineering maths(1976) subjects. We swore by this book. I scored A in this subject. It was expensive for us in India (BITS, Pilani, Rajasthan) and we got this on rent from our collaborators 'MIT foundation'. Very nice to watch a video on this... feels nostalgic..🙂
I learned Calculus using this 3rd Edition. It was an excellent textbook. We went through the entire book, front to back, everything, including complex numbers, which was then definitely part of a standard calculus course. Since Calculus and complex numbers are essential to Physics, and since many Calculus students are also studying Physics or Engineering, it's hard to think that any serious Calculus textbook wouldn't cover them. The omission of any of the original list of topics is a bit perplexing. Most people using the book do so as students in a class, and not for self-study, so hitting a section that a student doesn't fully grok won't lead to them stopping using the textbook, as the class will be moving on to the next topic regardless. The professor, TA, or other students can help with understanding of any sections where the student has difficulty. Having answers only to odd (or even) problems is not that unusual. It gives instructors that ability to assign problems in exams. There will be a professor's answer key that will have answers to all questions. As you point out, there are more exercises in the newer book, so it seems like they haven't reduced the total number of answers.
When going through engineering undergrad having answers available to the diagnostic problems was essential to confirming that one was really understanding the approach to the material. Doing an exercise 20 or 30 times incorrectly is not only wasting your time, but it's reinforcing an incorrect approach. Having the answers was a minimum though - having an example of at least a similar problem was extremely useful. In one course in particular (field theory) we had a solutions manual that was notorious for being wrong about half the time but that was OK because it was actually excellent with problem setup and descriptions, so spotting where the author had made a mistake was a useful exercise in itself.
This is common practice in many textbooks. Its basically a way of helping teachers by giving them half the questions that they can use for homework assignments or tests. Basically, it helps teachers from having to come up with their own questions. This is definitely not helpful to those who are self-taught, but the reality is the majority of learning is through tutalage or institutions. Its understandable that publishers cater to their primary audience, educational institutions.
Couldn't help but notice this popup in my YT feed. I have the 4th Edition (5th printing) from my days at University in the mid '70s. Answers to all exercises are included. Paperback, two color. Cheers.
With the caveat that I am not a Spanish speaker, I have to say that your Spanish was impressive. I wasn't expecting you to suddenly break out into (what sounds to me like) fluent Spanish. I re-watched that part for the tingles.
My first year of Calculus was with that book. I took Calc I and II with that book. I switched schools in my junior year, and they used a different book, but I still have a copy of my Thomas book (I have copies of both actually - one of the few books I didn't resell at the end of the semester). We were using the 7th edition.
I still love that book! My first exposure to calculus was in an AP class way back in Sep 1967. I agree, it is a legendary book, a true classic. About 20 years ago, I haggled a beautiful copy down to $15.00 at a used book store, but these days on eBay or AbeBooks it's way overpriced. Some sellers want nearly a hundred bucks. Excellent review! Thank you. Odd answers only are okay by me.
This book looks like the math books I had up into the mid-1980's. About 1985, books started leaving out critical parts of explanations, by the turn of the Millennium, they're all about showing kids how to solve the problems with a graphing calculator that they're going to turn in at the end of the semester and never see again.
Wow this is the book we used in 1965 at the college of education at the Baghdad university Iraq as we were becoming Mathematics middle school and high school teachers. We used the book for year 1 and 2, the book had red hard cover. As a matter of fact I still have this valuable calculus book here in America.
Mine too, It was from Academic Press. It was divided into 2 parts and cost about 15 dollars back in 1960"s. I don't have mine since I had to go into the Army and eventually to Viet-Nam and had to give them up to new incoming students. I did have a copy of it later as an examination book by the publishers. I taught the first 2 parts and they needed a recommendation. They used a poor text by Protter and Morrey and wanted a change. They ended up with Apostol's book which was later viewed as too oriented to Math majors and it had to be changed. They ended with the Stewart text and have been using it for years now.
Interesting. I learned calculus from "Calculus and Analytic Geometry" by Thomas and Finney in 1983. It looks like the 9th edition this book is still available new. Maybe the publisher split this into two different versions now? I also wonder why Finney isn't included any more.
The book I used in 1986 in India was by Thomas and Finney as well. Finney assisted Thomas in revising the book from the 5th edition onwards, which is when his name was added. After Finney's death in the year 2000, the authorship reverted back to Thomas alone. And it been Thomas' Calculus from the 11ed onwards.
I used the 3rd Edition, 3rd Printing in 1962 as a freshman at MIT. We covered the entire book, except DE in two semesters, 18.01 and 18.02. I had George Thomas as a lecturer for 18.01. We also had most of the problems assigned as homework and a classwide exam (entire freshman class) every third week. The same was true for Physics and Chemistry, who had has class-wide exams alternating every third week. I can't say it was better or worse than any other book, as I struggled with every subject, but at least I passed.
I also used the 3rd Edition as an MIT freshman but in 1960. I still refer to it occasionally. Non-relevant Thomas story: Prof Thomas was late for class one morning. An almost-late freshman showed up, saw that the Prof had not yet arrived, and starting writing the digits of PI on the (black) board. He got about 50 or 60 digits written, when several freshmen simultaneously shouted out a correction. The digit was corrected, and the freshman continued writing more digits. He got maybe 80 or 90 written before Thomas showed up. Thomas looked at the string of digits, said nothing, but gave his lecture, carefully writing above and below the digit string. At the end of the lecture, the digit string was still there.
I have that book from 1975-76. Mine had some answer. My cover was golden. It also had all the calculus derivatives and integrals on the front and back cover.
Thank you for sharing your math books collection. I'm curious to know if you have any college math book on Differential geometry (Geo Diff or Geometrie differentielle in french) with tensor products, etc. Why? I struggled a lot with it during my undergrad years, back in 1993 with french math curriculum. The subject was very captivating but our professor at that time didn't teach us in a clear manner. Thanks in advance.
How did the RUclips algorithm figure out that I have the 5th Edition of this book still in my attic from my engineering studies in the early '80s and recommend this to me? A quick look through it shows my marginal notes and solutions on some of the pages. I no longer recognise the guy who wrote them though 40 years ago.
Now it is 14th Edition. I am also also crazy about textbooks, especially old textbooks written by dead authors. Nowadays I have been buying from Abebooks a lot, and I think some modern textbooks nowadays are like magazines, colorful but diluted, whereby the drawings does not serve to illustrate but to distract. and confuse. Remarkably, books from India and China are still preserving the traditions.
foreign authors books are great for examples and exercises but they lack solved examples and treatment in them regarding few concepts is shallow, whereas if you look at the books written by Indian authors 🧒 will find tons of solved problems.
@@Fekuchand_ I love Indian books. But buying them is always a problem. I am from Singapore, but have problem buying them from S.Chand due to some money transfer problems.
I do love an old book or two :) We had a wonderful assortment of older mathematical texts when I went to college. The community college had older textbbooks more so than older math books; but when I went for my bachelors the library was stocked with some really valuable gems.
I didn´t know you spoke such good spanish! Me estoy volviendo loco para encontrar esa edición en español, aunque me conformaria con una en Inglés. Thanks for your motivation
We used that edition in 1967-1968 for the Calculus, accelerated 2 term undergraduate course(s). It was not the most popular book in the U.S. That honor goes to Protter and Morrey’s book(both from U.C. Berkeley).
So I noticed that there seems to be quite a lot of problems to work through at the end of each chapter in the third edition of the book(Which is excellent!). There seems to be review questions, as well as some miscellaneous questions to work through. I suppose my question is, what is the best way to tackle these? I have two different ideas I could use, each having their own pros and cons... Method 1: Do only the review problems, and skip the misc problems. The idea behind this is that I can come back to these misc problems once I have finished the book, and refresh my memory on things that might have been done a little while ago. I've seen something known as the so called "forgetting curve", that suggests returning to the subject multiple times can make that curve less steep as time goes on. So I've thought to myself: "Perhaps I should leave these problems here, as an incentive to come back later". I don't actually know how much truth there is to the forgetting curve, but it is enough to make me question. I also don't fully understand proofs at of the time of writing, and yet there are proofs in some of these problems for me to work through. So part of me thinks it might be a good idea to come back to these problems once I've read through my Discrete Math book some more and get a better understanding on what proofs even are. To give you an idea on how much progress I've made with my Discrete Math book, I've only read the first three pages so far(So not a lot)... A BIG con with all of this though, could be that I get into a bad habit of skipping loads of problems, and I really don't want that to happen. Method 2: I could go ahead and do it all in one go. This could work better, as I would likely get an even deeper understanding than what I already have much more quickly. The struggle with working through proofs, even though I don't know how they work too great, could also be beneficial as I would likely get at least something from it. The cons that concern me have to do with getting stuck on a problem, and time. I could be spending some of this time getting an idea on what some of the other stuff is like(provided I understand the material up to a certain degree). In addition, this persistence on trying to work through every problem as I come across them could make it even more difficult for me to be willing to let go when necessary and move on. Yet I still would like a deep understanding at some point nonetheless... So what do you think? Am I overthinking all of this? Which method is the way to go? Or maybe there's even a third method that I haven't even thought of? Looking forward to any responses I get! Thanks!!! :)
If you’re just working through it to learn on your own, I say work the problems you want to work. These textbooks normally have more problems than ever needed so teachers have enough to assign as they want and perhaps give multiple versions of assignments. I wouldn’t leave problems to come back to later, because if you do them the first time and then work through the rest of the book, you probably forgot all the specific solutions to those earlier problems - it may even be helpful to work some of the problems twice and compare how your solution methods changed over time as you got more experience and also learned more advanced topics.
Medical students often encounter texts that are updates of very old editions. Eventually, the updates include the original author's name in the title, as in this case. I found it quite odd for a math book. But then again, why not? I referred to my brother's copy of the '60s version of Thomas in grad school when I needed information beyond the level of my own college textbook (Johnson & Kiokmeister). I think the Thomas was better. With its help, I could solve a homework problem requiring multiple integrals in an hour or two. No lectures or hours of study required. Very clear writing, it must have been.
I have known a number of engineers and scientists who managed to pass Calc with good or excellent grades, but later during their careers had a “eureka” moment when they actually understood what an integration or differential actually meant. My PhD advisor said the best way to understand Calc is to code it. Personally I think Calc should be taught without numbers for the first few weeks of class so students can understand the basic concepts of integration/differentiation. Use common everyday examples of Calc so the eureka moment occurs at the beginning of the learning curve instead of at the end.
I first encountered Thomas' book ( 3rd edition) in the spring of 1967, fresh from three years in the army. That first semester was the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life. I checked. It has answers for all of the questions. I also checked "Advanced Engineering Mathematics", bu Kreyszig, 2nd ed. It only has answers to every other question. Same with "Modern Mathematical Analysis" by Protter and Morrey. I managed to get through all three so maybe losing the answers to even numbered problems isn't the end of the world
Mr , this is one of the best books on the planet....Tons of profesors prefer this for calculus...nowadays the 14th edition is already taught in thousands of colleges worldwide...As for the solutions , dont worry ...millions of students can easily find for free the INSTRUCTOR'S manual on line...so everybody is happy and pleased....
I have the 7th edition of what I think is the same book. It is called Thomas/Finney Calculus and Analytic Geometry. Ross Finney was another MIT mathematician.
I am abysmally poor at maths. This centres especially upon working basic operations (addition, multiplication, etc.). I simply stare blankly at cyphers and symbols that my mind finds meaningless, especially in the aggregate. By contrast, I am a brilliant speller, good with the technicals (usage, grammar punctuation, etc.), and an excellent writer. I am an aspiring novelist--popular fiction; I have no pretensions to literature. Still, some things arithmetic and mathematical intrigue me. Alfred North Whitehead explained in an essay I read in an English composition course that these fields are about quantification. Well, that was encouraging. I quite enjoy quantifying and measuring things. Which brings me to my main points: 1) the circle and the square (two-dimensional geometry): and 2) the sphere and the cube (three- dimensional geometry. I am a fair pencil artist and pen & ink illustrator, who has made a considerable amount of graphics, signage, logo design, and similar. These have shown me (artistically, rather than geometrically) that the square has greater area than the circle, and the cube greater volume than the sphere. But at what rate of difference? Would this be a ratio? A percentage? Can one learn anything else of significance from the basics of the constructs? Yes, I understand that the sphere and the cube are two of the shapes of the physical world, along with the cylinder, the cone, and the torus. I do not consider the other three; I am not about to bite off more than I can chew!
This was the textbook I used in my introductory calculus course in Brooklyn College in 1964. I heard that Thomas had a yacht named “Calculus and Analytic Geometry”. I have no idea whether that’s true.
I feel the same way about the Larson pre-calculus text (2e). The later editions took out explanations which I thought were best to leave in. The section on finding asymptotes truly suffered in later versions. Have you done a review of these books by chance?
You might want to use the books with a title _Elementary Algebra and Trigonometry_ by either Larson, or Stewart, or Swokowsky. Those are more comprehensive textbooks. Precalculus versions are truncated, even dumbed down a little bit. Personally, I would not buy a book with a Precalculus title when _Elementary Algebra and Trigonometry_ titles are available that go deeper and cover more ground. That's because a precalculus book looks somewhat similar to an HS book which are a bit primitive to be completely honest.
A lot of my engineering books had only odd number answers (if any). I don't know about that book in particular, but in many cases the publisher sells a separate solution manual. That may be why they remove them in this case, so they could sell them separately.
Thomas was my _Calculus & Analytic Geometry_ textbook from back the 1970s. If I remember right. That was a long time ago. ps, I have that textbook smell addiction, too. lol
Tmc che. Are you A CHEMICAL Engineer? Sound like something. a ChE would do. I used the text for first 3 semesters at MIT 1956 to 1958. Fourth semester was. Differential equations. Followed by Advanced Calculus for Applications and Linear Algebra. CHE class of 1960.
@@frankbrown7043 ChemE I am indeed. Retired. ps, we had the same math curriculum, a decade or so apart. Probably, the only difference being that I was punching computer cards at midnight, begging to be the first one on the compiler in the early morning.
My version is the big Orange version, 4th edition, 1968, with answers to all the problems. It was brand new version when I took Calc I & II in '68 - '69
Love the way you inspect the books its incerdibly good and useful. Thanks to you now I know wich thomas I should choose for self study. Thanks, may the lord bless you and G.B.Thomas Best wishes from iran
Ha! I used Thomas for Calculus in 1976. I still have the book, and like flipping through it. I eventually took 11 semesters of Calculus in college and grad school.
My Thomas from 1972 is the "Alternate Edition " which the publisher's note describes as after the Third Edition, with the section on limits "not as developed as in the Fourth Edition."
i used to spend countless hours in the various libraries on campus 'back in the day' and i would choose those textbooks from the 60s, 70s and even 80s over the 'modern' books without second thought - excluding of course 'new' material in physics, biology or technology ;-)
You just gave another good and funny example about how the olfactory system can contribute to motivate and mobilise one’s attention to study science. I can attest to that: the old books I like the most usually also have a pleasant smell, whatever that means. And frankly I don’t really want to know what it is that had to rot away over many years of shelf life to create this “old smell of wisdom”. Could be skin and sweat from other readers, could be insects and their droppings, could be certain moths that like to chew on paper - but didn’t succeed because there was just too much good math on the pages 😂.
60 years ago I had Thomas for Calculus and it had answers to odd numbered questions in the back which helped me study material and prepare for exams. My teachers used the even numbered questions for quizes and tests which had the answers to all questions in the Teacher's Edition as I recall. A good system for learning. Earned BS in Mathematics. My girlfriend earned both BS in Math and MRS as well.
I took Calculus in 1965 and we used the Thomas Text.The large version was divided into 2 books. The First one was for Cal 1 and 2 and the 2d book for Cal 3. They did this I think for academic reasons and to spare the student on codsts. So do they have 2 parts to the current one? I got an A for Cal 1 and 2 and a B for Cal 3
IMPORTANT: DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS are where the information of this book is used in math and science. Solving those is necessary to USE most of the calculus results. They require a separate set of classes where the difference between homogeneous and inhomogeneous differential equations and their solution requirements, as one very important topic, are taught.
In older books the paper is yellowish brown. Should it come in contact with moisture it lives. You can see the fibers of the paper cloth. New books pages are coated with a white paste. Contact with moisture will stick everything for good.
So is an older copy of Thomas' book a good one for self study? I was always " scared" of calculus, probably due to the horror stories from friends. Math was never my strong subject in school, but I've recently been wanting to tackle calculus. A more mature mindset has allowed me to go back and get a lot better at math I was terrible at as a kid. So, just wondering how this book rates as a guide for self study. Thx.
I too have a 3rd edition, from my freshman 18.02 course in the Fall of 1966 at M.I.T. About half the entering class had had AP Math, so we started with the 2 semester calculus course (which corresponds to the 3rd semester course most places). Thomas was one of two textbooks we used for the course. The main one was a set of notes by Arthur Mattuck titled Vector Integral Calculus. Green's Theorem, Stokes' Theorem, div, grad, curl, all that good stuff. Your copy of Thomas has different binding than mine. Mine is wine colored with black background under the title one the spine. Is yours a library binding or just a different printing with a different binding? I notice that I no longer have the green dust jacket that came with it and followed it around for years. Don't remember when I ditched the DJ, but it must have gotten a little too shredded to be worth saving. Easy to do given how thick the book is, that I've had it for over 50 years, and it has followed me around on I don't know how many moves. Survived many cullings too. When thinning my library and I figure I just need one calculus book, I unhaul all the instructor copies from when I taught calculus and keep Thomas.
@@jirimondo Mattuck and Benny were teaching 18.01 & 18.02 my first semester. (Remarkably, Quillen was my recitation instructor for 18.02.) I met Thomas briefly a few times at various events in the math department during my years there.
Yet another 4th edition (1968, $13.50 new) owner and disciple here. It is much like the 3rd. Unfortunately, I still believe that many of the revisions were made to force students to buy the newest edition rather than a more affordable used edition. It's a despicable practice that persists today. However, you've inspired me to reread some of the chapters. So much there that I've completley forgotten because I have never had a need.
I took Calculus in 1958 from the first edition of Thomas. Maybe it was the first text that combined Calculus and Analytical Geometry. Previous to the Thomas text beginning students took Algebra, Trig and Analytical Geometry. With Thomas the Analytical Geometry folded into the Calculus thus saving three hours of study in the math department for engineering students. I have observed that engineers want their students to know mathematics but don't want their students to take mathematics, their time better spent in engineering classes.
I got the fourth addition - very good for self study (along with Advanced Algebra and Calculus Made simple by Gondin & Sohmer). Funny error on page 489 in calculating the Syncom satellite (Geo-sync) orbit (Worked Problem #3 using logarithms) does all calualtions correct until the very end answer getting 22,500 miles instead of 22,300 miles and invites the readers to find the error - I found it years later when I got use to spotting (km to mile) conversion errors.
I have that 13th edition. Didn't mention that the 17th chapter is /online/ so if you buy it used... you probably won't get it! Which really sucks. I'm glad this wasn't the only Calc book I bought at the time.
Looking for a snazzy, inspirational text to add to my arsenal of math books. Eventually I'm gonna dive back into calculus, and that book looks just like what I need. I have a great text by Anton, but I've already done all of the problems in it years ago. The older texts are underrated in my view. I love my differential equations book by Boyce and DiPrima, and I also have a well worn calculus book by Lloyd L. Smail, published in 1953. If I have to order the book by George B. Thomas in this vid., would you please tell me what the ISBN no. is? I've written down math texts from other videos of yours, but this one has really piqued my interest!
6:30 there are only a few math books I've seen where that doesn't happen. Usually I don't have to read very far in any of them before I get to something that I don't understand, and it's challenging, and there are no teachers to explain it, so I give up.
I've a 5th edition of the book. It has answers to almost all of the problems. I think they start to offer only answers to odd(or even) problems in the 6th or 7th editions. If you self-study calculus, get a copy of the 5th or earlier edition to get all of the answers. The 5th edition was printed in two colors. It was a gem. Put a copy on your bookshelf for handy reference.
Good to know
Thomas v Fraleigh, who is 'better?'
I still have the 6th edition that I used way back in 1987. I can't believe I missed it by one edition. So, the change happened a LONG time ago, it seems.
I have the 7th edition from 1989. It has answers to odd problems.
On your 5th edition, what was the year of publication?
I worked problems from this book over the summer between high school and college. It is a good book. I still have it 44 years later.
The Spanish function notation reminds me of Russian notation.
Awesome!!
In the late 1960s I lived in a very rural and poor part of se Ohio. As a freshman in hs I figured out calculus on my own with this book. The answers were instrumental.
Over the length of high school I figured out 2 years of college math and started out as as junior in college. I had no help in studying the subject.
Now that I am close to 70 years old I found out a very valuable lesson. To study math or the sciences professionally, one has to be invited in. I was not invited in and had a successful career in engineering.
I had a chance to teach Chemistry Lab to majors and non-majors. Pre-med students were the worst since they didn't care because they knew they would never use it again. Engineering students were the best because it was another world even though they would never use it again.
Glenn, Excellent post; although your 'invited in' phrase caught me a bit perplexed, so please elaborate. Thanks.
You had a lot more IQ points than did I.
I was a mediocre science and math students in HS, and just managed to fumble my way through trig.
Circa 1990, I decided I could do better than that, so at age 40 I went back and took math classes through two quarters of regular calculus, and got 4.0 grades. The third quarter of calc I dropped out, then went back and took it again, and again couldn't complete it. That was the end of my math studies, I figured I had done all my intelligence would allow me to do.
Circa 2019, I took a computer machining class. The TA for the class was a third year engineering student. When I related the anecdote above on my math studies, he told me he had taken third quarter calc THREE times before completing it properly! I was impressed ---I didn't have enough courage to do that, and figured I was just limited out on IQ points.
I recall a third quarter calc teacher lecturing the class --- saying that he expected a SOLID HOUR of study for every class day to keep up. I was spending THREE hours a day to keep up!
Pretty much every math class had someone complaining "WHY do we have to study this?" That was until calc ---and after that no one asked that question any more.
As a marginal math student, I can compare math study in the mid 1960s with that in the early 1990s. Computers and graphing calculators were a great aid for me in being able to visualize equations by graphing them on a computer or calculator. I figure that computers have made it possible for marginal math students to learn more math because of that.
@@SeattlePioneer I think one of the biggest shifts in being able to learn decades ago versus now is the internet. Back when, what you had was what you had & if your teacher was mediocre at teaching something & the books were less than helpful then that was it. Today on almost any subject some one some where has uploaded material & in some cases will actively respond to inquiries on problems so an eager learner has resources at their disposal undreamt 40 years ago.
@@JohnBrown-wk4io >
I agree. That's an enormous resource.
Schools should be restructured to take advantage of it, but of course schools are among the backward institutions of society.
A commenter on another video mentioned that the 4th edition was the best, because it included derivations of Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion, and because later editions were dumbed-down for less prepared students.
good. that's the one i have.
I have the 7th edition and it has derivations of Kepler's Laws in chapter 14 section 4 Planetary Motion and Satellites.
I just bought the 3rd edition on Amazon to go along with the 13th edition of Thomas' Calculus that I have per your advice. Thank you very much for suggesting this. Really like your videos and the information you provide.
We used the newer version in my community college class, but it’s always shocking to see the older editions of these modern textbooks that always seem to have a new edition every so often but don’t even really change from year to year.
They can raise the price simply by slapping a new copyright date .
@@kevinmadden1645 Yes. That's the main change. The price.
When the edition remains unchanged the supply of used textbooks cuts into the publishers profits... Auto companies change their offerings each year for the same reason.
@@rickhole You get it. The price of the used ones also plummets to literally cents sometimes. This is why you always buy the older editions OR the international versions, publishers also charge other countries less for the same book and yes, the text is still in English.
@@sws212 Textbooks, especially in the US, show the "planned obsolescence" that Alfred P Sloan introduced to the automobile industry. It served Detroit well until they came up against foreign competition. I forget who it was who said "What's good for General Motors is good for America." I have my doubts about that. The great innovation on the obsolescence front is that new textbooks come with a subscription to a related website for one year only. You think you need that to keep up with the rest of the class.
I have the 4th edition. It was the mainstay of first year engineering in 1970s.
The sections on Fourier transforms and complex numbers are really important for the study of electrical engineering.
I was just browsing around RUclips and I saw your video. I'm pretty sure I used this book in the early 80's, it was purple and thicker. But what caught my attention was the older book here, because it looked to be the same vintage and maybe title as the book my father used in college in the early 50's. We had the book for a long time, but unfortunately I don't have it anymore. I think in those days they didn't learn so much math in high school, so that might explain why that book had the unusual content it had. He was an engineering major, and other math books he had included a book on Trigonometry. The older books looked like they were harder to read, they didn't bother much with pretty sections, illustrations, etc. I still have my father's 18" wooden slide rule that came in a leather case, some old drafting instruments, and tables of logarithms and the like which were much more detailed than the ones I could find myself when I needed them. 20 years or so ago I took the whole series of Calculus courses again (sorta for fun), and the main thing that changed is that I had to learn how to use a graphing calculator.
I have the fourth edition in my library. We were using it in high-school Calculus in 1983-1984, but switched to a newer edition in the spring. I don't know which version, but only half as thick with less content. I asked my teacher if I could "lose" my book instead of turning it in; he let me and only charged me $1 for the cost. Best deal I've ever gotten!
I like that you asked your teacher if you could 'lose' your copy...
As a teacher I appreciated having answers for only half the problems. I would assign homework with some without answers to see the students mastery and others with answers to build their confidence. Publishers provided an answer guide with all included but available to teachers only .
That was what I always thought was the reason books had only the odd numbered problems answered.
Most texts have ample number of problems so someone self-studying still has plenty to checkable exercises. I think if I were still teaching I would give two assignments, one with a mix of answered and another all unanswered and give bonus points for those. At least try that for one semester. I would post on my office door solutions to the unanswered problems after the assignment was closed, or cover them in the next class.
My first Calc professor said some of the exam problems will be from the end of chapter problems. The ones without answers in the back.
Yes, that is the reason, except my students always demand to see answers to the other half as well. I am tired answering emails 'I solved problem 3.22' (even) - where can I find the answer ? Given that most answers for classical texts can be found online now, even/odd split is not greatly useful. I would more appreciate a separate bank of problems, which are not in the textbook
@@dmitripogosian5084 I assume you have the teacher's answer booklet with all the answers. If you prefer your students to have access to the answers you could provide them in class before or after the assignment is complete. I would post them on my office door after they had turned in their homework.
In high school, they always had two versions of each book. The Teacher's version would have all the answers, even often working them out. But the student versions were always like this, with only odd answers.
I believe the idea was that the teacher could assign even problems without us being able to get the answers, but we could still get help on the similar odd problems.
Yes, that’s right. I remember my teacher have the teacher version with all the answers. The students were assigned homework from the even-numbered problems.
Except the problems we got always involved a word problem I couldn't even parse into what the lesson just was, let alone solve it
The idea was to dumb down society to make the students dependent on the teacher´s version of things.
Reminds me of the college algebra by Rider that I still have with me 😅
While I used the 1965 Thomas work for three semesters between 1967-68 (up to calculus of several variables), I did find the treatment of LIMITS to be severely wanting, in that I was never quite able to grasp the concept of limits and continuity. The Pearson edition, OTOH, begins with a review of basic function topics (algebra, composition, and transformations of functions), and does a rather superb job with limits and continuity.
Know that I think highly of you math sorcerer. I am very close to having my second degree complete. Math is really not a huge interest in my life at this time But do know that I see great wisdom and effort being put forward with your channel. I did subscribe to your channel over a year ago to support your work. Have a wonderful winter time, my dad and I are actually going to Johnson city Tennessee very soon to walk along the Appalachian trail. December 16.
Thanks for the post ! I've always been fascinated by mathematical formulas but not very good at math. I recent started teaching myself some of the basic language's of Calculus, Quantum Physics and Geometry.
...Being born in 1957, I grew up with technical books like this in high and college. Now I collect (as a hobby) them for my own private library. Thanks for the video.
It is amazing to look at the history fo math books. It is spectacular and awesome to do, I love it and watching you explore this!
When I was in (high) school - 60+ years ago - I remember text books like this.
The student version had answers to odd numbered questions, but the teacher version had answers to them all.
Not all of the answers were correct though. I remember some frustrations that were only resolved by asking the professor to work the problem and having him admit that the answers in the back of the book was wrong.
I had a wonderful and unexpected run in with this book (3rd Edition) today! I was driving upstate to go hiking and drove past a house with 4 old wooden sheds and a homemade sign that said "All books .50 - $1, self serve always open". The sheds were filled with shelves of all kinds of books you can imagine, and as luck would have it, there was even a small math section! There were a few interesting finds, like "Arithmetic for the Modern Age" by Aaron Bakst, but this book by Thomas caught my eye immediately. I love self studying from the older books, and I'm stoked to have this one in my collection now. I usually browse ebay and abebooks, but today, the math gods brought me to a few sheds way out in the middle of nowhere to get 900 pages of math for one dollar :)
I did 2nd year Pure Maths in the early seventies and when I saw your video, it blew my mind that it's still around and being reviewed by yourself. Looking at your comparison, I think I still prefer the older edition - but who knows? maybe I'm nostalgic? :)
Calc is really enjoyable IMO. Really brings out the beauty of math. I'm not a mathematician and only took Calc one at a university, before I ran out of funds, but absolutely had a great time with Calc.
tg, ch, sh are all continental European notations. I grew up in Montreal but went to a French high school from France and this was the notation. French speaking Quebecois are Americanized and thus use sinh, tan etc... Text book in French in Quebec are often translations of American books because of the mismatch especially pre-1980 between mathematics in French Lycées and Quebec high schools. (Far more abstract math in France: delta, epsilon, number theory, abstract vector spaces, etc... all over the place in French high schools.).
Also in France, [a,b] means a closed interval. If it is open on the left, it is ]a,b]. ]a,b[ for example is less confusing than (a,b).
Finally in French, German and Japanese, a field (R, C, etc...) is called a "body" (corps,Körper and 可換体 ) so it is less confusing. Chinese use 域 which is more like region but their vector field is 場 as in Japanese. (field!) (I live in Japan)
When you just love math just because of how beautiful the notation is😁..and when youve work for 40 hours on math problems and you can hear the blood flowing in your brain😁
I used various editions of Thomas in high school and college (the 1970s and 80s). We had the answers to the odd problems in the back. In college we could buy the solutions manual, which showed how to work the problems.
😊😊😊
I have a 13e Thomas (the non-early trans version) that Im using to teach myself calculus ahead of taking the course. The book my college uses is the Larson book. I thought about getting an older version of that book, but Thomas was cheaper (i found my copy for $26 on Amazon and its in pretty decent condition) and Ive heard more about it.
Another book I picked up recently is Calculus by Morris Kline. Its a very fun book to read and has nice exercises. Its in print, but its a reprint of a text that was last revised in 1975. So its interesting to see how Calculus textbooks were written 50 or so years ago.
Awesome !!
@@TheMathSorcerer I request that you do a review of the Calculus (An Intuitive Approach) by Morris Kline. It's a book I am super keen to buy. Have been watching all your reviews and been loving them! Oh and lastly, as others have pointed out if you could do a review on the Calculus book by George Simmons, it would be great. :) Much gratitude.
Excellent book. We used this as text for one of our 1st year engineering maths(1976) subjects.
We swore by this book. I scored A in this subject.
It was expensive for us in India (BITS, Pilani, Rajasthan) and we got this on rent from our collaborators 'MIT foundation'.
Very nice to watch a video on this... feels nostalgic..🙂
I learned Calculus using this 3rd Edition. It was an excellent textbook. We went through the entire book, front to back, everything, including complex numbers, which was then definitely part of a standard calculus course. Since Calculus and complex numbers are essential to Physics, and since many Calculus students are also studying Physics or Engineering, it's hard to think that any serious Calculus textbook wouldn't cover them. The omission of any of the original list of topics is a bit perplexing. Most people using the book do so as students in a class, and not for self-study, so hitting a section that a student doesn't fully grok won't lead to them stopping using the textbook, as the class will be moving on to the next topic regardless. The professor, TA, or other students can help with understanding of any sections where the student has difficulty. Having answers only to odd (or even) problems is not that unusual. It gives instructors that ability to assign problems in exams. There will be a professor's answer key that will have answers to all questions. As you point out, there are more exercises in the newer book, so it seems like they haven't reduced the total number of answers.
When going through engineering undergrad having answers available to the diagnostic problems was essential to confirming that one was really understanding the approach to the material. Doing an exercise 20 or 30 times incorrectly is not only wasting your time, but it's reinforcing an incorrect approach. Having the answers was a minimum though - having an example of at least a similar problem was extremely useful. In one course in particular (field theory) we had a solutions manual that was notorious for being wrong about half the time but that was OK because it was actually excellent with problem setup and descriptions, so spotting where the author had made a mistake was a useful exercise in itself.
I agree with you. I have had to find an instructor's manual to get that because this practice is so wide spread.
This is common practice in many textbooks. Its basically a way of helping teachers by giving them half the questions that they can use for homework assignments or tests. Basically, it helps teachers from having to come up with their own questions.
This is definitely not helpful to those who are self-taught, but the reality is the majority of learning is through tutalage or institutions. Its understandable that publishers cater to their primary audience, educational institutions.
Couldn't help but notice this popup in my YT feed. I have the 4th Edition (5th printing) from my days at University in the mid '70s. Answers to all exercises are included. Paperback, two color. Cheers.
With the caveat that I am not a Spanish speaker, I have to say that your Spanish was impressive. I wasn't expecting you to suddenly break out into (what sounds to me like) fluent Spanish. I re-watched that part for the tingles.
My first year of Calculus was with that book. I took Calc I and II with that book. I switched schools in my junior year, and they used a different book, but I still have a copy of my Thomas book (I have copies of both actually - one of the few books I didn't resell at the end of the semester). We were using the 7th edition.
I have the 4th addition from when I was at the University of Minnesota in 1968. Thanks for the video.
I still love that book! My first exposure to calculus was in an AP class way back in Sep 1967. I agree, it is a legendary book, a true classic. About 20 years ago, I haggled a beautiful copy down to $15.00 at a used book store, but these days on eBay or AbeBooks it's way overpriced. Some sellers want nearly a hundred bucks. Excellent review! Thank you. Odd answers only are okay by me.
I think "odd" answers could have been a pun by the editors. Calculus was the bane of my college years.
I used this book as a reference in the late 60s... probably 1st edition. :) Excellent book for self study.
I used Thomas as an engineering undergrad at TAMU many years ago. It was the Alternate Edition.
This book looks like the math books I had up into the mid-1980's. About 1985, books started leaving out critical parts of explanations, by the turn of the Millennium, they're all about showing kids how to solve the problems with a graphing calculator that they're going to turn in at the end of the semester and never see again.
Wow this is the book we used in 1965 at the college of education at the Baghdad university Iraq as we were becoming Mathematics middle school and high school teachers. We used the book for year 1 and 2, the book had red hard cover. As a matter of fact I still have this valuable calculus book here in America.
Mine too, It was from Academic Press. It was divided into 2 parts and cost about 15 dollars back in 1960"s. I don't have mine since I had to go into the Army and eventually to Viet-Nam and had to give them up to new incoming students. I did
have a copy of it later as an examination book by the publishers. I taught the first 2 parts and they needed a recommendation. They used a poor text by Protter and Morrey and wanted a change. They ended up with Apostol's book which was later
viewed as too oriented to Math majors and it had to be changed. They ended with the Stewart text and have been using it for years now.
Interesting. I learned calculus from "Calculus and Analytic Geometry" by Thomas and Finney in 1983. It looks like the 9th edition this book is still available new. Maybe the publisher split this into two different versions now? I also wonder why Finney isn't included any more.
The book I used in 1986 in India was by Thomas and Finney as well.
Finney assisted Thomas in revising the book from the 5th edition onwards, which is when his name was added. After Finney's death in the year 2000, the authorship reverted back to Thomas alone. And it been Thomas' Calculus from the 11ed onwards.
@@jaganshri Interesting. I met Finney's son when we were both graduate students at Caltech, circa 1990. He was working on a chemistry PhD.
I used the 3rd Edition, 3rd Printing in 1962 as a freshman at MIT. We covered the entire book, except DE in two semesters, 18.01 and 18.02. I had George Thomas as a lecturer for 18.01. We also had most of the problems assigned as homework and a classwide exam (entire freshman class) every third week. The same was true for Physics and Chemistry, who had has class-wide exams alternating every third week. I can't say it was better or worse than any other book, as I struggled with every subject, but at least I passed.
I also used the 3rd Edition as an MIT freshman but in 1960. I still refer to it occasionally.
Non-relevant Thomas story: Prof Thomas was late for class one morning. An almost-late freshman showed up, saw that the Prof had not yet arrived, and starting writing the digits of PI on the (black) board. He got about 50 or 60 digits written, when several freshmen simultaneously shouted out a correction. The digit was corrected, and the freshman continued writing more digits. He got maybe 80 or 90 written before Thomas showed up. Thomas looked at the string of digits, said nothing, but gave his lecture, carefully writing above and below the digit string. At the end of the lecture, the digit string was still there.
I have that book from 1975-76. Mine had some answer. My cover was golden. It also had all the calculus derivatives and integrals on the front and back cover.
Thank you for sharing your math books collection. I'm curious to know if you have any college math book on Differential geometry (Geo Diff or Geometrie differentielle in french) with tensor products, etc. Why? I struggled a lot with it during my undergrad years, back in 1993 with french math curriculum. The subject was very captivating but our professor at that time didn't teach us in a clear manner. Thanks in advance.
Yeah I will make a video soon on this! Thank you!!!
How did the RUclips algorithm figure out that I have the 5th Edition of this book still in my attic from my engineering studies in the early '80s and recommend this to me? A quick look through it shows my marginal notes and solutions on some of the pages. I no longer recognise the guy who wrote them though 40 years ago.
Now it is 14th Edition.
I am also also crazy about textbooks, especially old textbooks written by dead authors.
Nowadays I have been buying from Abebooks a lot, and I think some modern textbooks nowadays are like magazines, colorful but diluted, whereby the drawings does not serve to illustrate but to distract. and confuse.
Remarkably, books from India and China are still preserving the traditions.
I AM INDIAN AND INDIAN BOOKS ARE BLACK AND WHITE BUT THEY TALK TO THE POINT 🙏
foreign authors books are great for examples and exercises but they lack solved examples and treatment in them regarding few concepts is shallow, whereas if you look at the books written by Indian authors 🧒 will find tons of solved problems.
@@Fekuchand_ I love Indian books. But buying them is always a problem. I am from Singapore, but have problem buying them from S.Chand due to some money transfer problems.
@@Fekuchand_ India today can efficiently send rockets to space, and probes to Mars. Mars. That is not without a reason.
@@Fekuchand_ Singapore book stores do not sell Indian books, so I can only buy online.
I do love an old book or two :) We had a wonderful assortment of older mathematical texts when I went to college. The community college had older textbbooks more so than older math books; but when I went for my bachelors the library was stocked with some really valuable gems.
I didn´t know you spoke such good spanish! Me estoy volviendo loco para encontrar esa edición en español, aunque me conformaria con una en Inglés. Thanks for your motivation
We used that edition in 1967-1968 for the Calculus, accelerated 2 term undergraduate course(s).
It was not the most popular book in the U.S. That honor goes to Protter and Morrey’s book(both from U.C. Berkeley).
So I noticed that there seems to be quite a lot of problems to work through at the end of each chapter in the third edition of the book(Which is excellent!). There seems to be review questions, as well as some miscellaneous questions to work through. I suppose my question is, what is the best way to tackle these? I have two different ideas I could use, each having their own pros and cons...
Method 1: Do only the review problems, and skip the misc problems. The idea behind this is that I can come back to these misc problems once I have finished the book, and refresh my memory on things that might have been done a little while ago. I've seen something known as the so called "forgetting curve", that suggests returning to the subject multiple times can make that curve less steep as time goes on. So I've thought to myself: "Perhaps I should leave these problems here, as an incentive to come back later". I don't actually know how much truth there is to the forgetting curve, but it is enough to make me question.
I also don't fully understand proofs at of the time of writing, and yet there are proofs in some of these problems for me to work through. So part of me thinks it might be a good idea to come back to these problems once I've read through my Discrete Math book some more and get a better understanding on what proofs even are. To give you an idea on how much progress I've made with my Discrete Math book, I've only read the first three pages so far(So not a lot)...
A BIG con with all of this though, could be that I get into a bad habit of skipping loads of problems, and I really don't want that to happen.
Method 2: I could go ahead and do it all in one go. This could work better, as I would likely get an even deeper understanding than what I already have much more quickly. The struggle with working through proofs, even though I don't know how they work too great, could also be beneficial as I would likely get at least something from it.
The cons that concern me have to do with getting stuck on a problem, and time. I could be spending some of this time getting an idea on what some of the other stuff is like(provided I understand the material up to a certain degree). In addition, this persistence on trying to work through every problem as I come across them could make it even more difficult for me to be willing to let go when necessary and move on. Yet I still would like a deep understanding at some point nonetheless...
So what do you think? Am I overthinking all of this? Which method is the way to go? Or maybe there's even a third method that I haven't even thought of? Looking forward to any responses I get! Thanks!!! :)
If you’re just working through it to learn on your own, I say work the problems you want to work. These textbooks normally have more problems than ever needed so teachers have enough to assign as they want and perhaps give multiple versions of assignments. I wouldn’t leave problems to come back to later, because if you do them the first time and then work through the rest of the book, you probably forgot all the specific solutions to those earlier problems - it may even be helpful to work some of the problems twice and compare how your solution methods changed over time as you got more experience and also learned more advanced topics.
Medical students often encounter texts that are updates of very old editions. Eventually, the updates include the original author's name in the title, as in this case. I found it quite odd for a math book. But then again, why not? I referred to my brother's copy of the '60s version of Thomas in grad school when I needed information beyond the level of my own college textbook (Johnson & Kiokmeister). I think the Thomas was better. With its help, I could solve a homework problem requiring multiple integrals in an hour or two. No lectures or hours of study required. Very clear writing, it must have been.
I have known a number of engineers and scientists who managed to pass Calc with good or excellent grades, but later during their careers had a “eureka” moment when they actually understood what an integration or differential actually meant. My PhD advisor said the best way to understand Calc is to code it. Personally I think Calc should be taught without numbers for the first few weeks of class so students can understand the basic concepts of integration/differentiation. Use common everyday examples of Calc so the eureka moment occurs at the beginning of the learning curve instead of at the end.
I first encountered Thomas' book ( 3rd edition) in the spring of 1967, fresh from three years in the army. That first semester was the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life. I checked. It has answers for all of the questions. I also checked "Advanced Engineering Mathematics", bu Kreyszig, 2nd ed. It only has answers to every other question. Same with "Modern Mathematical Analysis" by Protter and Morrey. I managed to get through all three so maybe losing the answers to even numbered problems isn't the end of the world
cool... I used this book in high school... thanks for a trip back down memory lane
awesome!
The smeller of books. I like your channel. I am a chemical engineer and wish I had studied more math. So I am doing it.
Your videos commenting Math books are indeed Great. I also agree that removing solutions from a Math Book is not the way to go to improve the book.
I'm still keeping this book. It is with this book I got a High Distinction for the Maths Exam in my First Year Undergraduate.
Mr , this is one of the best books on the planet....Tons of profesors prefer this for calculus...nowadays the 14th edition is already taught in thousands of colleges worldwide...As for the solutions , dont worry ...millions of students can easily find for free the INSTRUCTOR'S manual on line...so everybody is happy and pleased....
I have the 7th edition of what I think is the same book. It is called Thomas/Finney Calculus and Analytic Geometry. Ross Finney was another MIT mathematician.
I am abysmally poor at maths. This centres especially upon working basic operations (addition, multiplication, etc.). I simply stare blankly at cyphers and symbols that my mind finds meaningless, especially in the aggregate.
By contrast, I am a brilliant speller, good with the technicals (usage, grammar punctuation, etc.), and an excellent writer. I am an aspiring novelist--popular fiction; I have no pretensions to literature.
Still, some things arithmetic and mathematical intrigue me. Alfred North Whitehead explained in an essay I read in an English composition course that these fields are about quantification. Well, that was encouraging. I quite enjoy quantifying and measuring things.
Which brings me to my main points: 1) the circle and the square (two-dimensional geometry): and 2) the sphere and the cube (three- dimensional geometry.
I am a fair pencil artist and pen & ink illustrator, who has made a considerable amount of graphics, signage, logo design, and similar. These have shown me (artistically, rather than geometrically) that the square has greater area than the circle, and the cube greater volume than the sphere. But at what rate of difference? Would this be a ratio? A percentage? Can one learn anything else of significance from the basics of the constructs?
Yes, I understand that the sphere and the cube are two of the shapes of the physical world, along with the cylinder, the cone, and the torus. I do not consider the other three; I am not about to bite off more than I can chew!
In the 1960s editions of Thomas’ Calculus (pronounced Thomases….do they teach English properly anymore?) was in 2 volumes.
Used the 7th edition at Rutgers about 30 years ago. Great textbook.
wow that's awesome!
This was the textbook I used in my introductory calculus course in Brooklyn College in 1964. I heard that Thomas had a yacht named “Calculus and Analytic Geometry”. I have no idea whether that’s true.
oh wow!
This book by Thomas is the book that taught me the Calculus. I also used the Apostal books too.
I am going to look for this book. Thank you.
I feel the same way about the Larson pre-calculus text (2e). The later editions took out explanations which I thought were best to leave in. The section on finding asymptotes truly suffered in later versions. Have you done a review of these books by chance?
Not the earlier editions I should check those out, thank you!
You might want to use the books with a title _Elementary Algebra and Trigonometry_ by either Larson, or Stewart, or Swokowsky. Those are more comprehensive textbooks. Precalculus versions are truncated, even dumbed down a little bit. Personally, I would not buy a book with a Precalculus title when _Elementary Algebra and Trigonometry_ titles are available that go deeper and cover more ground. That's because a precalculus book looks somewhat similar to an HS book which are a bit primitive to be completely honest.
@@billmorrigan386 … a bit. :)
@@nmionline9003 Yeah, that was an understatement on my part. Just don't want to launch an attack on HS math books.
A lot of my engineering books had only odd number answers (if any). I don't know about that book in particular, but in many cases the publisher sells a separate solution manual. That may be why they remove them in this case, so they could sell them separately.
Thomas was my _Calculus & Analytic Geometry_ textbook from back the 1970s. If I remember right. That was a long time ago.
ps, I have that textbook smell addiction, too. lol
I simply open it and do the exercises for fun since I already know the content long time ago from different books.
Tmc che. Are you A CHEMICAL Engineer? Sound like something. a ChE would do. I used the text for first 3 semesters at MIT 1956 to 1958. Fourth semester was. Differential equations. Followed by Advanced Calculus for Applications and Linear Algebra. CHE class of 1960.
@@frankbrown7043 ChemE I am indeed. Retired.
ps, we had the same math curriculum, a decade or so apart. Probably, the only difference being that I was punching computer cards at midnight, begging to be the first one on the compiler in the early morning.
My version is the big Orange version, 4th edition, 1968, with answers to all the problems. It was brand new version when I took Calc I & II in '68 - '69
Love the way you inspect the books its incerdibly good and useful.
Thanks to you now I know wich thomas I should choose for self study.
Thanks, may the lord bless you and G.B.Thomas
Best wishes from iran
Ha! I used Thomas for Calculus in 1976. I still have the book, and like flipping through it. I eventually took 11 semesters of Calculus in college and grad school.
I believe that change was to save space in the newer editions.
That was my calculus text in high school in the 1970s. Nice to see it again.
Great job. I often wondered what happened to Plane and Spherical Trigonometry? So the book of that vintage are written for more independent students.
My Thomas from 1972 is the "Alternate Edition " which the publisher's note describes as after the Third Edition, with the section on limits "not as developed as in the Fourth Edition."
i used to spend countless hours in the various libraries on campus 'back in the day' and i would choose those textbooks from the 60s, 70s and even 80s over the 'modern' books without second thought - excluding of course 'new' material in physics, biology or technology ;-)
What about a vid about your favourite theorem and what it means to you?
Ooh yes!!!! Great idea thank you!!!
You just gave another good and funny example about how the olfactory system can contribute to motivate and mobilise one’s attention to study science. I can attest to that: the old books I like the most usually also have a pleasant smell, whatever that means. And frankly I don’t really want to know what it is that had to rot away over many years of shelf life to create this “old smell of wisdom”. Could be skin and sweat from other readers, could be insects and their droppings, could be certain moths that like to chew on paper - but didn’t succeed because there was just too much good math on the pages 😂.
Huge props to a nerd's nerd: "I collect math books."
And not just in English!
Made my day.
😁
:)
I went to Stanford in 1979 and used the 5th edition for my engineering major.
nice!!
60 years ago I had Thomas for Calculus and it had answers to odd numbered questions in the back which helped me study material and prepare for exams. My teachers used the even numbered questions for quizes and tests which had the answers to all questions in the Teacher's Edition as I recall. A good system for learning. Earned BS in Mathematics. My girlfriend earned both BS in Math and MRS as well.
Louis Leithold editions are good calculus texts.🙂
I took Calculus in 1965 and we used the Thomas Text.The large version was divided into 2 books. The First one was for Cal 1 and 2 and the 2d book for Cal 3. They did this I think for
academic reasons and to spare the student on codsts. So do they have 2 parts to the current one? I got an A for Cal 1 and 2 and a B for Cal 3
IMPORTANT: DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS are where the information of this book is used in math and science. Solving those is necessary to USE most of the calculus results. They require a separate set of classes where the difference between homogeneous and inhomogeneous differential equations and their solution requirements, as one very important topic, are taught.
In older books the paper is yellowish brown. Should it come in contact with moisture it lives. You can see the fibers of the paper cloth. New books pages are coated with a white paste. Contact with moisture will stick everything for good.
interesting:)
So is an older copy of Thomas' book a good one for self study? I was always " scared" of calculus, probably due to the horror stories from friends. Math was never my strong subject in school, but I've recently been wanting to tackle calculus. A more mature mindset has allowed me to go back and get a lot better at math I was terrible at as a kid. So, just wondering how this book rates as a guide for self study. Thx.
A great vid as always
I agree!!
Hugely popular book
Learned a lot from it
Fascinating, thanks for sharing
I too have a 3rd edition, from my freshman 18.02 course in the Fall of 1966 at M.I.T. About half the entering class had had AP Math, so we started with the 2 semester calculus course (which corresponds to the 3rd semester course most places). Thomas was one of two textbooks we used for the course. The main one was a set of notes by Arthur Mattuck titled Vector Integral Calculus. Green's Theorem, Stokes' Theorem, div, grad, curl, all that good stuff.
Your copy of Thomas has different binding than mine. Mine is wine colored with black background under the title one the spine. Is yours a library binding or just a different printing with a different binding? I notice that I no longer have the green dust jacket that came with it and followed it around for years. Don't remember when I ditched the DJ, but it must have gotten a little too shredded to be worth saving. Easy to do given how thick the book is, that I've had it for over 50 years, and it has followed me around on I don't know how many moves. Survived many cullings too. When thinning my library and I figure I just need one calculus book, I unhaul all the instructor copies from when I taught calculus and keep Thomas.
Thomas was still teaching 18.01 and 18.02 in '74-75 (my freshman year) as I recall.
@@jirimondo Mattuck and Benny were teaching 18.01 & 18.02 my first semester. (Remarkably, Quillen was my recitation instructor for 18.02.) I met Thomas briefly a few times at various events in the math department during my years there.
Yet another 4th edition (1968, $13.50 new) owner and disciple here. It is much like the 3rd. Unfortunately, I still believe that many of the revisions were made to force students to buy the newest edition rather than a more affordable used edition. It's a despicable practice that persists today. However, you've inspired me to reread some of the chapters. So much there that I've completley forgotten because I have never had a need.
I have Thomas in the 8th edition from '92. By then Finney (Naval Postgraduate Ins) was involved. Gosh that was a long time ago
I took Calculus in 1958 from the first edition of Thomas. Maybe it was the first text that combined Calculus and Analytical Geometry. Previous to the Thomas text beginning students took Algebra, Trig and Analytical Geometry. With Thomas the Analytical Geometry folded into the Calculus thus saving three hours of study in the math department for engineering students. I have observed that engineers want their students to know mathematics but don't want their students to take mathematics, their time better spent in engineering classes.
I got the fourth addition - very good for self study (along with Advanced Algebra and Calculus Made simple by Gondin & Sohmer). Funny error on page 489 in calculating the Syncom satellite (Geo-sync) orbit (Worked Problem #3 using logarithms) does all calualtions correct until the very end answer getting 22,500 miles instead of 22,300 miles and invites the readers to find the error - I found it years later when I got use to spotting (km to mile) conversion errors.
My favorite calculus book. I have two later editions. There were no major changes. Both have odd solutions.
I have that 13th edition. Didn't mention that the 17th chapter is /online/ so if you buy it used... you probably won't get it! Which really sucks. I'm glad this wasn't the only Calc book I bought at the time.
Looking for a snazzy, inspirational text to add to my arsenal of math books. Eventually I'm gonna dive back into calculus, and that book looks just like what I need. I have a great text by Anton, but I've already done all of the problems in it years ago. The older texts are underrated in my view. I love my differential equations book by Boyce and DiPrima, and I also have a well worn calculus book by Lloyd L. Smail, published in 1953. If I have to order the book by George B. Thomas in this vid., would you please tell me what the ISBN no. is? I've written down math texts from other videos of yours, but this one has really piqued my interest!
I used the book by Thomas in college, it's really great !
.
I have the 3rd edition (alternate edition). It has all the answers to problems, but graphs updated from the 1st.
6:30 there are only a few math books I've seen where that doesn't happen. Usually I don't have to read very far in any of them before I get to something that I don't understand, and it's challenging, and there are no teachers to explain it, so I give up.
Neat, had it as textbook in high school in early 70s.
awesome!
Thanks for the review! It's a nice book with some interesting and difficult problems to solve.....God bless you...