Reviews for Discrete mathematics and its applications

The average rating for Discrete mathematics and its applications based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-10-29 00:00:00 Keith Foster I'm convinced that math gurus are incapable of teaching math. Whenever I encounter math textbooks like this one, I'm reminded of Underpants Gnomes on South Park. For the unwashed: Underpants Gnomes stole underwear from the residents of South Park hoping that they'd profit from the thefts, but although their business plan included a Phase 1 ("Steal underwear") and a Phase 3 ("Make a profit"), Phase 2'the connective tissue'was just "?". Rosen and others like him fail to grasp how much "?" connective tissue they're leaving out when they "teach" math. He'll describe a math concept using almost-but-not-quite human language, then'oh, there's always a "then" with these books'the math gymnastics begin. Math teachers can't resist the gymnastics, can they? No, they really can't. At some point they lose their ability to see how much they assume other people know, and when that happens they cease being effective at teaching. This describes almost every math teacher I've had, and it definitely describes almost every math textbook that I've read. Rosen's book isn't the worst math textbook that I've read, but it's still pretty awful. Seriously, corner cases and extreme mind-bending problems don't help people learn math; giving students time to grasp concepts before baffling them with bullshit does. This is why math schools like Khan Academy are amazing and college/university level math courses are not. This stuff can be taught, but not like this.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-02-13 00:00:00 James Otoole Half a decade of my life dedicated to this.