Maths: A Student's Survival Guide: A Self-Help Workbook for Science and Engineering Students

This friendly and gentle self-help workbook covers mathematics essential for first-year undergraduate scientists and engineers. Mathematics underlies all science and engineering degrees. If your mathematics is not strong, you may have a problem. This book is the solution. Jenny Olive uses her wide experience of teaching and helping students to give you a clear and confident understanding of the core mathematics you need to start a science and engineering degree. Each topic is introduced very gently, starting with simple examples that really bring out the basics, then moving on to more challenging problems. The author takes time to give tricks of the trade and shortcuts, but is also careful to show you common errors and how to anticipate and avoid them. There are over 800 questions for you to do with full and detailed solutions given so that if you get stuck you can work through and see exactly where you have gone wrong. Topics covered include trigonometry and hyperbolic functions, sequences and series (with detailed help on binomial series), differentiation and integration, and complex numbers. This book is a fun and easy way to brush up your maths - either before you start on your university or college course, or while you are getting to grips with it. It's never too late!

Table of Contents:
Introduction; 1. Basic algebra: some reminders of how it works; 2. Graphs and equations; 3. Relations and functions; 4. Some trigonometry and geometry of triangles and circles; 5. Extending trigonometry to angles of any size; 6. Sequences and series; 7. Binomial series and proof by induction; 8. Differentiation; 9. Integration; 10. Complex numbers; Index.

Review :
'Jenny Olive's Maths: A Student's Survival Guide is a friendly book written in an engaging style … It also contains very full, worked solutions to the exercises, which will greatly aid self-study. The introduction contains wise guidance on how to study and understand mathematics and the author's experience as a teacher comes out through her warnings of pitfalls and common errors … it will be valued particularly by those who need to make up a deficiency in a specific topic or to remove the rust from their mathematics … working through a few sections from Olive may be the prescription to cure the problem in many cases.' Nigel Steele, The Times Higher Education Supplement ' … designed as a self-study guide, and allows students to make as much use of sections of the book as they need … An important feature is that for every concept, the book returns to basics, giving clear and entertaining explanations of the background to maths … this book is a fine example of its kind and I shall certainly use it with my students certainly use it with my students in the coming year.' Geoff Auty, School Science Review ' … excellent value, and certainly worth recommending to the strugglers in your maths class or tutorial group.' Andrew King, The Observatory