Finite Mathematics for the Managerial, Life, and Social Sciences, 11th Edition

Book Preface

Math plays a vital role in our increasingly complex daily life. Finite Mathematics for the Managerial, Life, and Social Sciences attempts to illustrate this point with its applied approach to mathematics. Students have a much greater appreciation of the material if the applications are drawn from their fields of interest and from situations that occur in the real world. This is one reason you will see so many exercises in my texts that are modeled on data gathered from newspapers, magazines, journals, and other media. In addition, many students come into this course with some degree of apprehension. For this reason, I have adopted an intuitive approach in which I try to introduce each abstract mathematical concept through an example drawn from a common life experience. Once the idea has been conveyed, I then proceed to make it precise, thereby ensuring that no mathematical rigor is lost in this intuitive treatment of the subject.

The only prerequisite for understanding this text is one to two years, or the equivalent, of high school algebra. This text offers more than enough material for a onesemester or two-quarter course. The following chapter dependency chart is provided to help the instructor design a course that is most suitable for the intended audience.

The approach

Presentation
Consistent with my intuitive approach, I state the results informally. However, I have taken special care to ensure that mathematical precision and accuracy are not compromised.
Motivation
Illustrating the practical value of mathematics in applied areas is an objective of my approach. Concepts are introduced with concrete, real-life examples wherever appropriate.
These examples and other applications have been chosen from current topics and issues in the media and serve to answer a question often posed by students: “What will I ever use this for?”
Problem-solving emphasis
Special emphasis is placed on helping students formulate, solve, and interpret the results of applied problems. Because students often have difficulty setting up and solving word problems, extra care has been taken to help them master these skills:
â–  Very early on in the text, students are given practice in solving word problems.
â–  Guidelines are given to help students formulate and solve word problems.
â–  One entire section is devoted to modeling and setting up linear programming problems.
Modeling
One important skill that every student should acquire is the ability to translate a real-life problem into a mathematical model. In Section 1.3, the modeling process is discussed, and students are asked to use models (functions) constructed from real-life data to answer questions. Additionally, students get hands-on experience constructing these models in the Using Technology sections.