Partial Differential Equations for Scientists and Engineers (Dover Books on Mathematics)

Once again, Dover comes across as the students best friend. Not only is their line of textbooks astoundingly cheaper, but they lose nothing in value. This text is no different. Not only does is get ideas and tough topics across with crisp, clear examples but their chapter breakdowns are excellent. Instead of filling your head with lots of extra theorems and corollaries this book pushes application and solid examples. Not only is it best for the engineer, but it's a great starting text. When I need to remember an advanced PDE method, I often start here. If you want more in depth and theorems and analysis, then simply move to a deeper book but this one gets the ball rolling. It's a must-have (and a very economic one at that) for anyone dealing with DiffEqs as an engineer and any mathematician.

I used this class in an independent study, and thought that all and all it was pretty good, but there were some parts which could have been better explained; specifically transformations (sine/cosine/laplace...) and characteristics for wave equations. There were also lots of errors which were frustrating when doing problems.

All in all though the rest of the book was pretty good, and the price can't be beat.

I'm usually unimpressed by math textbooks. There typically seems to be a lot of intimidating notation that is not well explained. Typically, it seems that the author is trying to convey self-importance by making his or her subject of expertise appear rather intractable to mere mortals.

This book is a rare exception. It is light and easy to read - I wanted to learn a little bit about PDEs without having to take a formal course in them, and this book has been a great introduction. It has lots of applications and examples that really drive home the lessons. The organization is very good; it is broken down into many small chapters. I highly recommend it.

Don't believe a single positive review about this volume! After struggling through the first four chapters, I gave up. Compounded with the barely to not-a-all lucid expositions (e.g., Lessons 2 and 3 and the Notes to Lesson 4), many of the exercises either do not follow from the preceding material or are too far advanced and recherché for the level of the text (e.g., problems 3 and 4 of Lesson 4.) Any sum paid for this volume far exceeds its worth. One star is way too many! BE FOREWARNED!!!

I teach BVPs at the undergraduate level and I use this text for classroom examples. It presents classical methods for solution of BVPs. Mathematics is provided at the application level so this not a reference for someone interested in the mathematics of PDEs. It does provide references (dated) that I have found useful for additional material. Most are inexpensive so you can add them to your library. Will DOVER consent to placing all of its texts in KINDLE format?

This book samples practical applications in heat transfer, diffusion and other areas. There is not much background info with which to start. If you are new to this branch of math, this book is over your head (OK, speaking for myself, it is over MY little head). Start with a college textbook. Get into the theory, in-depth definitions, and general cases. Then go to this book for the practical cases.

Be careful to read the beginning of this book without skipping ahead to the subject matter. In the beginning are key definitions of shorthand notations to be used throughout the rest of the book. If you skip the introduction, you won't know what Utt or Uxx mean.

Conclusion: The bargain price is nice. I'd say the book is 80% clearly written, considering the murky subject. But it is not an "Intro to" text, by any means. I wanted to see more electrical & magnetic applications, but those are just my narrow targets.

Great book but.....KINDLE VERSION contains many, many typos .....for example, it replaces variables "x" and "t" with little square boxes! Are you kidding? This is math text! Why would they sell a Kindle release full of these errors? It is very annoying. It's like publishing cooking recipes with missing ingredients.

This book is very good book as an elementary book on PDEs. Author discusses how to solve hyperbolic (in single degree) and parabolic equations and elliptic elementary problems.

Hyperbolic problems given in this book are elementary problems but, it's a good start for 1-D problems.To have a better understanding, better study C. Zachmanoglou's book on hyperbolic PDEs. But this book lays basic foundation which can be used as a launching pad. Examples are good enough for one to understand the methodology of solving problems.

This book doesn't discuss solving system of PDEs. You have to search elsewhere for the treatment.

This book is by far one of the most understandable and concise texts in pde's that I have ever seen, the purpose of the book is for engineers and physics students that want to understand the applications. The book is broken down to 47 lessons that can be read in about an hour or so per lesson. The author also gives very useful references for more advanced study. I recommend this text for anyone that has to take an engineering or physics pde course.

I have been a full time university math tutor for the past 13 years and I strongly recommend this text for any applied science student.The treatment of non-homogenous pde's and applications of fourier transforms to pde's is very unique. This book also does an excellent job of going over numerical techniques of solving heat equation, wave equation and laplace equation.

A very nice little book. Does an excellent job at building physical and mathematical intuition. Not many good exercises, so I wouldn't use it as a text book, but an extremely valuable reference. I don't require it of students, but I strongly suggest they pick up a copy.

This book is a rarity because Farlow actually succeeds in explaining how to model physical problems using PDE's. This is a volume for engineers rather than mathematicians, so expect clarity rather than pages of ugly and worthless abstractions. It's not exhaustive, but, given the price, you wouldn't be justified in demanding a detailed treatment of all the intricacies of a subject as vast as PDE's. As a pedagogical tool, Farlow stresses the physical origin of PDE's , so many problems include units and very insightful diagrams. For example, unlike many other authors, Farlow reveals the intuitive meaning of the LaPlacian, which is a noteworthy distinction reminiscent of the writing of Tristan Needham, the author of Visual Complex Analysis. If your primary interest is real understanding rather than an adeptness at manipulating meaningless symbols, this book contains all the physical motivations necessary to advance your ambitions.

As the title implies, this book is not intended to mathematicians, although it could finely serve as additional text for them, too. On the other hand it is excellent as an itroductory overview of the types of PDE's met and the methods used for their solution. There are references to more advanced texts for the interested, excercises in each chapter and, most importantly, nice, qualitative remarks on the properties of mathematical tools (like Fourier and Laplace transform) which help the reader to comprehend them.

This book is a basic introduction to PDEs with an applied flavour. This is not really for math majors. It does not include enough exercises and the ones that it does have are easy. If you are into applied math then this may be the book for you. However, I don't recommend this book for theoretical math. Introduction to Partial Differential Equations by Donald Greenspan is not a difficult book and I recommend it for math majors. Also, it has enough exercises for good practice.

Briefly, I found Farlow very acessible and at times amazingly clear in his exposition of the fundamentals of pde. His analysis of the 1-D heat equation with natural bcs; second derivative in space with clamped conditions leading to periodic functions and first order derivative of temp w.r.t to time leading to an exponentially decaying solution. Super job!!

This is a excellent reference for those interested only in solving PDEs without getting lost with their intimacies. I widely recommended it, for me has been quite useful. This an example of a simple treatment of a very complex subject.
Excelente libro para aquellos que requieran resolver ecuaciones diferenciales parciales sin que por ello estén dispuestos a leer capítulos enteros de fórmulas y procedimientos intrincados. Este es el libro más concreto y completo de ecuaciones diferenciales parciales que yo he leido alguna vez. Altamente Recomendable.

I teach an intro course in PDE regularly and, although I don't use this as the main textbook, it is required reading for the course. Given its approach, its mathematical rigor is not quite right for the course that I teach, and it could use more interesting exercises. That said, it is indispensable for its physical and visual insights. It's brief and to-the-point and a cursory reading gives a wonderful introduction to the various topics and ideas of PDEs. The book is well written, and the informal writing matches the approach. And - the price is right!

Its good. WIsh there were more worked examples. Chapter 37 solutions i think are wrong.I posted one on physics forum and they agree...But other than that it is an amazing book. Really wish it had more detail on solving navier stokes equations

Partial differential equations can be obscure, and are often not dealt with at all at the undergraduate level. Assuming only a reasonable familiarity with calculus and ordinary differential equations, this book is extraordinarily clear and even enjoyable. Divided into neat, digestible segments suitable for self-study, I found it a very useful introduction to PDE's, covering a very broad range of topics and examples. My only suggestion for improvement would be a more up-to-date review of numeric methods using a computer algebra system. Nonetheless, even this section (examples intended to be worked by hand) is very clear and makes alternate texts much easier to absorb. I would recommend it to anyone wishing to be more comfortable with PDEs.

This is a fantastic introductory PDE text; I've been using it as reference for many years. It is a very easy to understand survey of PDEs that's more focused on getting a solution (engineering slant) versus proofs of existence, blah blah, (pure math slant). Best of all, it's sold at Dover prices!

Unbeatable as far as breadth. Covers a lot of ground, conceptually it's extremely well organized, and the explanations are very easy to follow. This text is ideal for self-study.
The two major shortcomings are (1) slight lack of depth and (2) the exercises, which are far too few and far too simple.

This book is an ideal companion for a graduate, or undergraduate, course in partial differential equations. There are worked examples and very useful definitions throughout the text. Additionally, the text is written as lessons and any lesson can be read and understood without reading the previous lessons. The best part is that this book is an order of magnitude cheaper than most college level texts and is largely more valuable.

I used this book in an undergraduate course, and since I couldn't see the board during lectures, I relied on only the book and it was very easy to read and understand. The major drawback of this book, and I don't know if this accounts for it's abnormally low price, is that there seem to be far more errors in the solutions than most books have. About 100 pages into the book, I had encountered so many errors, that thereafter whenever my solutions were different from the solutions in the book, I wondered first if the book was wrong, not if I had done something wrong.

This is a great book from mine kind of perspective. Reason why I gave 4 stars is that i haven't finished reading this book so i don't know how good is the rest of the book explained.
The book explain very simply the basic things regarding pde which is good for someone who isn't mathematician.
I would definitely recommend this book to engineers and undergraduate students of mathematics.
Best regards

I was assigned Farlow's PDE text for an introductory PDE course at the advanced undergraduate level. The course was tailored towards a mixture of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and engineering students.

From a math major point of view, this text lacks depth in its exposition. To reiterate prior buyers' comments, Farlow's exercises are largely trivial. Farlow introduces a wide range of material and concepts; he does not, however, develop them thoroughly enough to satisfy readers who expect and prefer greater mathematical rigor.

I highly recommend Logan's intro text on PDEs (Springer 2004), especially for those possessing an advanced undergraduate mathematics background. Logan succeeds in all areas where Farlow fails--Logan is an all-around solid text. If you already have Farlow, pick up a copy of Logan as a supplement. You won't regret it.