Second Year Calculus: From Celestial Mechanics to Special Relativity

Description

I regard this as a mediocre and second-rate textbook that lacks the necessary depth, breadth, and formality expected of a calculus text. The table of content certainly lists all the essential headlines of introductory vector calculus. But, virtually every single topic seems to exist only in the most minimal form and amount. Things are just "dumb-ed down" and presented in as few words - and as simplistically - as possible.Having said that, there may be circumstances where some people actually find the book useful specifically because of its watered-down and simple-minded nature.Almost without exception, in-text examples are trivial cases of plug-n-chug for the immediately preceding equation/discussion. I read more than 75% of the book and I saw very few good examples that are thoughtful and illustrate interesting or special cases, or bring out subtleties. Most (but not all) of the end-of-section exercises that I sampled are equally uninspiring and unimaginative, "busy-work" type of problems.I got interested in this book because it claimed to develop the subject in close connection with problems from Mechanics. Well, while this material has some value, it is again so thin that it's hardly special.