Foundations of Higher Mathematics

by Peter Fletcher and C. Wayne Patty

Book Overview

This text introduces students to basic techniques of writing proofs and acquaints them with some fundamental ideas. The authors assume that students using this text have already taken courses in which they developed the skill of using results and arguments that others have conceived. This text picks up where the others left off -- it develops the students' ability to think mathematically and to distinguish mathematical thinking from wishful thinking...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0534929613
• ISBN13: 9780534929619
• Release Date: January 1786
• Publisher: PWS Pub. Co.
• Length: 292 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A great read to see what lays ahead

I read and worked the problems in this book during my break as I transferred from a community college to a 4-year university, and found it very helpful in introducing me to all the fancy terminology, notation and basic proof writing that I was intimidated by. I found the problems to be hard enough to be challenging, but also neither impossibly hard nor hinging on a silly trick.If you are a eager HS student, or a curious college student, get this book and work the problems.

Great introduction to mathematics

I bought this book for a course in classical algebra. I found the book well explained and well done. It contains a lot of exercise and example of differents difficulty. It covers logic, set, relation, induction, function, combinatorial proofs, countable sets and uncountable sets, groups and some calculus. The book has a lot of subject in it and it make it very flexible. If you want to ontroduce yourself to mathematics, I would recommend this book if you want to spend some money.

An excellent introduction to mathematical logic!

This book provides an excellent introduction to mathematical logic, set theory, graph theory, number theory, and more -- everything which is "neat" in higher math.I would strongly recommend this book before any proof-based math class. The authors explain methods of proofs very well, and give some principles universally important in mathematics -- Zermelo's thm., Dirichlet's prin., and such.The exposition in this book is great. If this is your first exposure to, for instance, the proofs by induction, this probably provides an excellent description of what's going on and how it works, why it works. The book is slim (at least, the 1992 ed.) and not inexpensive. However, the authors' conversational tone makes it very approachable; at the same time, they are mathematically rigorous and very thorough.

Clear and concise book on math and more

This book is well done. Not only is well done but the explanations are clear and concise. The book offers different approaches. I use it for class and find most revealing. Hope you enjoy too. M.