A Transition to Advanced Mathematics 7th Edition

I was very satisfied with the overall condition of the book for such an economical price; The cover was not damaged or faded and there were no marks, no torn pages and no dog ears. Books R Good provided excellent service and responded quickly to my emails. In spite of shipping difficulties encountered, Books R Good shipped the book 3 times at their own expense. I cannot recommend this particular purveyor of books highly enough. It is a pleasure to do business with Books R Good.

My teacher selected this book for the Set Theory class that I am taking. This book has a lot of information in it and some great examples. The material is tough but if you work through the exercises at the end of each section you will have a good handle on the material. This book, unlike many other math books, is actually fairly simple to comprehend as well. All in all its been a great book.

Three stars seems a bit low, but four definitely would be too high for this book. There seem to be a lot of reviews here of the fifth and sixth editions; I can't speak to them because my copy is the seventh edition. (It would seem to me that reviews for the various edition should be separate, since problems with one might not be in another, but Amazon, in their infinite wisdom, considers all editions to be the same book and lumps all the reviews in together.)On the good side, this book seems to have a good variety of exercises to work, from easy to extremely challenging; unlike some reviewers, I consider this a feature, not a bug. And if there aren't solutions to all (or even half) of the problems, it is a fair defense to point out that in a book of this sort, there may be many possible solutions to the same problem, and it would be doing students a disservice to provide "the" solution. Still, I'll agree with the reviewers who complain that the "the second half of this proof is left as an exercise for the student" copout is the lazy author's way out.The real problem with this book, however, is that even more so than most math textbooks (which is saying something) the explanations are impenetrable for someone who isn't already fluent in the language of math. I was fortunate enough to have a good prof, who was able to explain concepts clearly and with a translation to standard english; as such, concepts that were impenetrable when I read them prior to class made perfect sense by the time class was finished. But not everyone is so fortunate; the value of a math textbook is that if the student doesn't understand something in the lecture, he/she can supplement the lecture with the textbook. My suspicion is that anyone trying to do that with this book would be left at least as baffled as they were before reading it.And no, it doesn't help that it's outrageously overpriced.

I used this book for the class foundations of mathematics which was the last required class for my math minor. This was by far the most enjoyable math class I took. The subject matter is grounded in developing proofs using logic. Domain, range, real numbers etc. This is a good book for anyone interested in advanced mathematics that doesn't involve cal 3 or 4.

The book was in excellent condition and shipped quickly. The pricing is a bit high, and was charged sales tax. I typically shop at HALF.COM for my books, but ended up in a pickle when I ordered this book off HALF.COM when it wasn't shipped. I found this book at Amazon and will start checking out Amazon for future book purchases!

We've been using this in our Introduction to Mathematical Proofs class (an upper-level undergraduate math class). I was a little nervous after seeing so many bad reviews here, but it's been a fine textbook. It's easy to learn the material from the book, and the question/problem sets are useful too. I don't have any other books of this type to compare it to, of course, but the layout of the text and material is clear, with definitions and properties given as needed.

Book is in great condition and is an easy to read text.

Consider this book your first investment in your mathematical education. While its a great read, its not worth the price, and if you're buying it anyways, chances are you were sucked into it by university requirement. While this might be the case, its still a great reference for introductory logic, proof writing, how to approach proofs, and theories and axioms for topics in mathematics. After reading it, you'll definitely feel stronger in mathematics, but again, not worth the price. Also the extra chapters on cardinality, introductory algebra, and introductory analysis, aren't that enlightening considering specific texts for those subjects combined is still less than the cost of this textbook. The problem is there is no decent undergraduate level textbook that incorporates all of the skills to write proofs, while still learning mathematics, hence the ability of the publisher to sell this at such a high price.As for the people that hate this book, my first time reading it for a class was a struggle, but I recommend for those who don't need it for their studies to try reading it during a break. Its much easier to work through questions and issues when you have an unlimited amount of time to thoroughly read and practice the material.I swear I would give it a 4 out of 5 if the book was a $75. If you have to get it for class, better luck next time. If you want it for personal reading to gain a better understanding of mathematics, and to add it to your personal library, consider previous editions at a more reasonable price.