What are the differences between popular Calculus books?

[Sword7]

Hello folks,

Because I have my old "Calculus 2nd Edition by Anton Howard" book, I checked latest editions through Amazon.com and eBay.com. I found some new kinds of books that I never heard of that before. Also, I found other Calculus books by Larson and Stewart, etc. On eBay.com, I ordered the Larson one (Calculus: Early Transcendental Functions 3rd Edition with CD bundle) and received it today. I compared it with my old Calculus but not much difference but much colorful pages and CD included.

Does anyone know what is "Early Transcendental" for? Can you explan that?

What are difference between Larson, Stewart, and Anton, etc..?

Does they offer ebook format?

Thanks!
Sword7

 

[lurflurf]

Most "standard" (to me bad) calculus books are very much alike. Transcendental functions are those that are not algebraic (polynomials, inverses of polynomials, roots, rational functions, and the like). Examples of tranendentral functions include sin, cos, tan, Arccos, Arcsin, Arctan, exp, log, sinh, cosh, tanh, erf, and others. In a standard calculus books such functions are first used several hundreed pages in, an Early Transcendental Functions calculus book uses such functions earlier.

As far as differences there are few, although to me none are very good, though Stewart is worst (and ridiculouly overpricesd at over 200$, at price which should buy at least 10 actual good calculus books).

 

[Unknot]

Stewart made a hell lot of money though; it is the best-selling calculus book. I personally recommend Thomas.

 

[HallsofIvy]

I doubt that Stewart "made a hell of a lot of money", at least not for himself. Most of the cost of textbooks goes into the cost of printing. Both paper and ink have become hellaciously expensive in recent years.

 

[Unknot]

I did hear from someone that he made few millions. Too much money for a mathematician

 

[Fragment]

It does not surprise me. They use Stewart's book in our math department. Our library sells it for ~$160 though. Largely overpriced as compared to many other, and far better books you can get for 1/4th of the price.

 

[Nabeshin]

We use this book as well. In my opinion it's a piece of junk.

Wish I could trade it for a Spivak, now that I know how bad it is.