About Vectors (Dover Books on Mathematics)

About Vectors (Dover Books on Mathematics)

<DIV> <DIV>From his unusual beginning in "Defining a vector" to his final comments on "What then is a vector?" author Banesh Hoffmann has written a book that is provocative and unconventional. In his emphasis on the unresolved issue of defining a vector, Hoffmann mixes pure and applied mathematics without using calculus. The result is a treatment that can serve as a supplement and corrective to textbooks, as well as collateral reading in all courses that deal with vectors.</DIV> <DIV>Major topics include vectors and the parallelogram law; algebraic notation and basic ideas; vector algebra; scalars and scalar products; vector products and quotients of vectors; and tensors. The author writes with a fresh, challenging style, making all complex concepts readily understandable. Nearly 400 exercises appear throughout the text.</DIV> <DIV>Professor of Mathematics at Queens College at the City University of New York, Banesh Hoffmann is also the author of <I>The Strange Story of the Quantum</I> and other important books. This volume provides much that is new for both students and their instructors, and it will certainly generate debate and discussion in the classroom.</DIV></DIV>