Higher Mathematics From An Elementary Point Of View PDF Download

Excerpt from Higher Mathematics: A Text-Book for Classical and Engineering Colleges In the early part of this century it was possible for an industrious student to acquire a comprehensive if not minute knowledge of the entire realm of mathematical science. The more eminent minds of that time, like Lagrange, Laplace, and Gauss, were about equally familiar with all branches of pure and applied mathematics. Since that epoch the tendency has been constantly towards specialization; and additions to pure theory along with extensions of applications have been made with increasing rapidity, until now the mere quantity of information available presents a formidable obstacle to the simultaneous attainment of the breadth and depth of knowledge which characterized the mathematician of a generation ago. It would appear, however, that this obstacle is due to the bewildering mass of details rather than to any considerable increase in the number of fundamental principles. Hence the student who seeks to gain a comprehensive view of the mathematics of the present day needs most of all that sort of guidance which fixes his attention on essentials and prevents him from wasting valuable time and energy in the pursuit of nonessentials. During the past twenty years a marked change of opinion has occurred as to the aims and methods of mathematical instruction. The old ideas that mathematical studies should be pursued to discipline the mind, and that such studies were ended when an elementary course in the calculus had been covered, have for the most part disappeared. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.