Product Description

Now in its third edition, Mathematical Concepts in the Physical Sciences provides a comprehensive introduction to the areas of mathematical physics. It combines all the essential math concepts into one compact, clearly written reference.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #204479 in Books
• Published on: 2005-07-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 864 pages

Review
Solutions Manual available. -- The publisher, John Wiley & Sons

From the Publisher
Updates the original, comprehensive introduction to the areas of mathematical physics encountered in advanced courses in the physical sciences. Intuition and computational abilities are stressed. Original material on DE and multiple integrals has been expanded.

About the Author
Mary L. Boas is currently professor emeritus in the physics department at DePaul University.

Customer Reviews

indispensable Mathematical hanbook for physics students
To put it quite simply, if you are a physics student, you must own this book. What does this book do for you? Consider this...

In my school, we do not have a mathematical methods course for science, so I decided to take on a math minor to take all the classes neccesary to do physics "right." This included a class on ODEs, Fourier Series & PDEs, Linear Algebra, and Complex Variables. These classes, although helpful, cover a lot of stuff that is not quite useful for understanding physics concepts, often undermining or dampening the stuff that is actually applicable.

What makes this book so great is that it combines all the essential math concepts into one compact, clearly written reference. If I could do it all over again, I would easily rather take a two semester Math Methods course (like they do in many schools) using a book like Boas than take all these obtuse math courses. With this book, it makes it so handy to review previously learned concepts or actually learn poorly presented topics ( for a physicist anyway) in mathematics classes... (Things like Coordinate Transformations, Tensors, Special Functions & PDEs in spherical & cylindrical coordinates, Diagonilzation, the list goes on.....)

Keep this gem handy when doing homework and studying for exams, learning the math tools from this book enables you to concentrate squarely on the physics in your other textbooks... (since mathematical background information, understandably, is often cut short...)

An excellent book for those who need applied mathematics.
This is an excellent book for undergraduates in science and engineering. This book is not for mathematics majors. So anyone who complains about the proofs or lack of rigor is off target. You are not the intended audience.

I include the chapter titles below since they indicate the coveraqe of the book.

1. Infinite series, power series
2. Complex numbers
3. Linear algebra
4. Partial differentiation
5. Multiple integrals
6. Vector analysis
7. Fourier series and transforms
8. Ordinary differential equations
9. Calculus of variations
10. Tensor analysis
11. Special functions
12. Series solutions of differential equations, legendre, bessel, hermite, and laguerre functions
13. Partial differential equations
14. Functions of a complex variable
15. Probability and statistics

Enjoy!

A Nice Balance Between Procedural Math and Cookbook Physics
When I was in college working to a double major in math and physics, it was as though the two fields didn't really know each other. The mathematicians were concerned with procedural processes where the mathematical techniques were asimportant, if not more so than the resulting formula. The physicists, on the other hand were concerned with using that formula to describe what's happening. Now the situation is even worse as computers have come in to allow the use of numerical techniques in many areas of physics that can be treated in a completely different by the mathematicians.

There seems to be a trend to develop math and computer science courses to be taught in the science departments. This is the course in math to be taught by the physics department. It strikes a nice balance between procedural math and cookbook physics.

This is the third edition. It has been updated based on feedback from requests. There is also additional information on the use of personal computers. She points out to students buth the usefulness and the pitfalls of computer use in most topics.