Mathematics for Engineers

Book Preface

Audience

This book has been written to serve the mathematical needs of students engaged in a first course in engineering or technology at degree level. Students of a very wide range of these programmes will find that the book contains the mathematical methods they will meet in a first-year course in most UK universities. So the book will satisfy the needs of students of aeronautical, automotive, chemical, civil, electronic and electrical, systems, mechanical, manufacturing, and production engineering, and other technological fields. Care has been taken to include illustrative examples from these disciplines where appropriate.

Aims
There are two main aims of this book.
Firstly, we wish to provide a readable, accessible and student-friendly introduction to mathematics for engineers and technologists at degree level. Great care has been taken with explanations of difficult concepts, and wherever possible statements are made in everyday language, as well as symbolically. It is the use of symbolic notation that seems to cause many students problems, and we hope that we have gone a long way to alleviate such problems. Secondly, we wish to develop in the reader the confidence and competence to handle mathematical methods relevant to engineering and technology through an interactive approach to learning. You will find that the book encourages you to take an active part in the learning process – this is an essential ingredient in the learning of mathematics.