Differential Equations (Cliffs Quick Review)

Rating:
Summary: Very Good Mechanical 'How to'
Review: This book provided me with almost what I wanted from such a title, that is a good bare 'how-to' review of ODE's (no PDE's here despite the rather general title). You'll find no 'theorem/proof/lemma' approach but rather 'heres an example-do 'em like this'-which does have its place for those seeking a 'quick fix' and can actually make concrete some ideas. I felt there were omissions that could have been included instead of the brief 'review of calculus' and 'a few applications'. These would include at least some attempt to deal with solving DE's by power series at ordinary singular points, some coverage of simple numerical (say Euler) solutions, and a mention of 'slope fields' in the 'introduction to DE's' section. For myself I also like the non-ornate presentation..it is free of the 'soap box/multi-windowed/cross referenced' pedagogical style that tends to distract some (me for one). A commendable feature is that this book could actually be 'read' (in the old fashioned contiguous way), and learned from by most high school/freshman level students.

Rating:
Summary: Not For Differential Equations Students!!!!!!!!!
Review: This is not a good book for people that are taking Differential Equations in college, but rather for people that are taking calculus and would like to get started with simple differential equations. I especially didn't like the fact that the book didn't even derive Euler's fomula for second order, homogenous differential equations, y=(e^(ax)(cosbx+sinbx)) when the characteristic roots are a+bi and a-bi. Nevertheless, this book provides a good START.