Vector Analysis A Supplement to Old School Advanced Calculus

This brief and inexpensive text is intended to provide a modern introduction to vector analysis analysis in R2 and R3 to complement the very rigorous and wonderfully written presentation of classical analysis in my soon-to-be-published book, Old School Advanced Calculus by W'illiam Benjamin Fite. While this book is otherwise very comprehensive, the presentation of functions of several variables in it is purely analytic and rather archaic in nature. Fite is intended as a model of what the standard year-long advanced calculus course-which has largely been abandoned at most universities since the l980's-would look like. Such courses were intended not onlv for mathematics majors, but serious physical science majors, for whom of course vector analysis is a necessary part of their mathematical training. Therefore, the absence of the differential and integral calculus of vector valued functions in low dimensional Euclidean spaces is a highly problematic lacuna in the book. The concurrent republication of this book by Miller is intended the rectify this. While the language of the book is classical in many regards, Miller is careful when possible to connect the material to modern formulations so he doesn't alienate mathematics majors reading the book. The best examples are in the first chapter, where he carefully lays out century vector algebra using "arrows" while detailing their algebraic structure as a vector space over the real or complex numbers. This keeps the book's intended audience very general, inviting not only mathematics majors, but physics, engineering and professionals in other fields that need to either review or learn this material. Also, most of the current standard books on vector analysis are rather expensive and lengthy. While Dover Books has made available a number of classical books on vector analysis at a very affordable price, many of these are quite old fashioned and may be difficult for students to read -either by itself or used in conjunction with another text or the instructor's notes-will give students a very affordable option that's still presented in a full modern context. The hope is that although the book is intended to supplement Fite, it can and should be used as a vector analysis text in its' own right Indeed, the hope is that because of the book's brevity and low cost, it will become an indispensable study aid for students who need to either learn or review this material quickly and accurately.