<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Good first PDE book!
Review: Haberman takes an otherwise difficult course and makes it bareable. He gives a lot of examples to help explain the methods.
Rating: 
Summary: ok that it's not rigorous IMO, it's just an intro
Review: I don't mind that this book isn't very rigorous; after all it's just an intro. The rigour can come later. I had this text for an intro PDEs course that had many students from physics or engineering, so I totally believe that this is the right book for them. Maybe if math students want more rigour they could learn the proofs of everything. This book is a pretty good 1-stop text for everything you'd want to do in undergrad PDEs. There are enough examples and problems to make things clear. It's definitely a keeper if you're going to carry on with PDEs.
Rating:
Summary: ok that it's not rigorous IMO, it's just an intro
Review: I don't mind that this book isn't very rigorous; after all it's just an intro. This book may be better for a physics or engineering student for that reason, and the rigour can come later if you're in math. I had this text for an intro PDEs course that had many students from physics or engineering, so I totally believe that this is the right book for them. Maybe if math students want more rigour they could learn the proofs of everything. This book is a pretty good 1-stop text for everything you'd want to do in undergrad PDEs. There are enough examples and problems to make things clear. It's definitely a keeper if you're going to carry on with PDEs.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I've only read about half of it so far, but I can definitely say the book is great. Very clear examples and explanations. I use it for self study and it's a pleasure to learn out of.
Rating: 
Summary: Feedback from using book in a course
Review: Reading this book was a very not satisfying experience. Haberman starts off the book without any general statements about PDE's. Instead, he begins by analyzing the general heat equation. Throughout the book, he uses this equation as a starting point for new material. However, he never really makes clear how techniques work for equations in general vs. how they work for this specific equation. For this reason, while reading the book, I'm not sure that I've really learned any general techniques for solving PDE's or if I just know a lot about the heat equation.
In a similar vein, while his writing style is pretty clear, he arbitrarily puts off proving or even explaining certain concepts, saying they "will be studied further" later. He'll mention certain concepts and say that their nuances will be explained later; it's never clear how essential the unexplained information is to the topic.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor choice of text
Review: This book was a very poor choice due to the weak examples and ambiguity of the exercises. It is not often clear what the exercises are looking for, because of the vauge nature of the questions. The examples do not even come close to providing adequate information to complete even the simplest exercises. The lack of a solutions manual shows what I believe to be the authors lack of genuine concern for the students. He should either remove the "Elementary" from the title or produce an adequate solutions manual.
Rating:
Summary: does the job!
Review: This is a fairly well-written book on PDE. I find the examples to be quite good, esp. if you want to see how mathematical theories are modelled from physical reality. The excerises are fairly well and there are answers in the back. Only compliant is that it is not very mathematical rigourous.
Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive, detailed, easy to read -- a good PDE text
Review: This PDE text by Haberman covers the ideas about separation of variables, Sturm-Liouville problem, finite difference numerical method, Green's function, Fourier transform, Laplace transform, and the method of characteristics. It presents the materials in quite plain, detailed manner. To me, the best part of this book relative to another books is that of Green's function. I've read Arfken, Farlow, and Strauss's texts, but have never got a satisfactory understanding.The Strauss's one is the worst. To a beginner or non-mathematician, it is impossible to accept that kind of crazy things. The Farlow's one doesn't pay enough effort on this topic. It just goes through in a few pages. The Arfken's one (Mathematical Methods For Physicists) gives a concise presentation in quite physical way, but not for beginner. It is more like a summary. Haberman introduces Green's function in his book with two chapters and in a quite different manner. He doesn't, like most physicists do, introduce it by Poisson's equation, but by heat equation and Fourier series; the ordinary definition of Green's function with delta function is given later. Though I think this is not a good idea and the presentation is not good, I do agree that it is much easier for beginners to understand. He makes no haste going into the three-dimensional case. Instead, he works on one-dimensional cases, then two and three-dimensional cases systematically. The point is, I think this won't make it too mathematical like the Strauss's one or too physical so that it is too constricted. In addition, he derives Green's functions in deductive way, instead of only taking a look at the physical suggestions. This makes the results convincible and gives readers a more comprehensive understanding. Perhaps the most annoying thing of this book is that it is too wordy. However, this may be another advantage-the text is hard not to understand! Someone says that Haberman hardly works on subjects other than heat equations. That kind of comment is misleading. He does work on wave and Laplace's equations. He just use heat equation as a main thread. If you're learning PDE for physics or engineering or other applications, this book is quite suitable for self-studying. If you only want to study the most basic ideas about PDE, then Farlow's may be a light choice. If you want to study more, you can read Haberman's text.
<< 1 >>
|
