Ebook: Schaum's Outline of Mathematics for Physics Students (Schaum's Outline Series)

This book is rife with mathematical errors, both in the text and in the solved problems or their answers. I skipped over many of the problems in the first half of the book and still encountered an error every few pages. In the second half of the book, there are many parts that have a mathematical error on every page, sometimes more than one error per page. If you already know the math you can spot the errors, but if you haven't already taken classes in the math this book is about, it will lead you astray and confuse you badly. Most of the errors are in the answers to problems, and if you can use Maple or Mathematica you can find out the correct answer, though it's a terrific waste of time. But there are also serious factual (mathematical) errors in the text itself. These are probably typos; there are other errors and style inconsistencies that make me think the book has not been proofread even cursorily.

I emailed McGraw-Hill about this. When I first wrote this review, I had not received a reply from them after waiting almost two weeks. However, after 2 1/2 weeks, I did receive a reply from an editor apologizing, informing me that they were going to contact the authors to "rectify every error" for the next reprint, offering a refund of my purchase price, and thanking me for informing them.

Better late than never, and I'm much more inclined to consider Schaum books in the future now. If I eventually find a newer printing on the shelves, I'll check a few of the errors I know about and update this review as to whether they were corrected.