A Concise Introduction to Pure Mathematics

Rating:
Summary: The missing link
Review: I'm not sure how many of us there are out there, but I am one of a breed of consumers of applied mathematics who learned some pretty sophisticated mathematical technology without the rigor of pure mathematics. Although this book is aimed at freshmen entering mathematics programs who need to be inculturated into the world of pure mathematics, I found it to be the crucial link I needed to advance my own applied mathematical training. I reached a point where I was ready to move from applied texts to the more cryptic world of math texts written for graduate mathematicians. Unfortunately, I was not properly trained to decypher their special language and way of doing things, particularly that of the formal proof. I found reading introductory texts in analysis to be like trying to learn Japanese from books which were themselves written in Japanese. Then I found this wonderful little text. It made things much more accessible to me and helped me crack enough of the code where I could find my way around those analysis texts, which in turn allowed me to move on to the graduate math texts containing the methods I am studying now. The book is a bit high priced for its size, but for me it was well worth it.