164

BOOK REVIEWS

and iterative solution methods, condition

numbers, preconditioning, etc.), but it was
a very good idea to put this material in the
perspective of the finite element method.
Since least-square algorithms are a recurrent theme in the book, one may only deplore that the authors passed up once again
the opportunity to emphasize that conditioning issues are especially important in
such algorithms.
Chapter 10, "A posteriori Error Estimates and Adaptive Meshes," devotes only
four pages to adaptive meshes, while the
remaindera posteriori error estimates
has nothing to do with implementation.
Thus, this chapter is perhaps misplaced.
At any rate, an a posteriori error estimate
is an upper bound for the error between the
exact and approximate solutions based only
on the data (i.e., right-hand side, boundary
conditions) and the available approximate
solution. Even though the initial idea goes
back to the late 1970s, the interest in such
estimates is relatively recent and the theory is still developing. The authors' exposition of residual-based estimates is clear,
but the reader will probably not understand
right away why duality-based estimates are
not just a kind of a priori estimate for the
dual problem (which would invalidate the
approach). More details should have been
given to resolve the ambiguity reported in
Remark 10.31. Also, in some inequalities
involving an unspecified constant c independent of the mesh size (for instance. Theorem
10.4), it should have been observed that c is
equally independent of the solution of the
continuous problem, as can be seen from
the proofs.
The more interesting and more convenient error estimates are those that can be
localized, that is, obtained by piecing together contributions coming from the various elements. Each element contribution is
then named a local error indicator. However, it is a matter of faith, not of science,
that the local error indicator over element
K is & more or less accurate measure of
the actual error over K: To date, a posteriori error estimates are for the global
error, not the local one. Nevertheless, this
belief can be efficiently utilized in mesh refinement/unrefinement strategies. This is
briefly explained in the last few pages of
Chapter 10.

The two appendices consist of a list of basic results in introductory functional analysis and Sobolev space theory. Acquaintance
with these results, which cannot be learned
by just reading the appendices, is a prerequisite for understanding most of the topics
developed in the book.
Among the few (and minor) oddities, one
must mention the use of "conformal" and
"nonconformal" instead of the universally
accepted "conforming" and "nonconforming" for finite elements. Also, the argument
(p. 86) for changing the name of the generalized Lax-Milgram lemma to "BanachNecas-Babuska theorem" under the pretense that the former terminology "would
amount to calling Banach spaces generalized Hilbert spaces" does not make much
sense. But since the terminology is not confusing, there is little point quibbling over it.
Last, there are repeated references to the
Navier-Stokes problem (pp. 201, 208, 312,
and 331) even though this problem is never
introduced in the text.
Overall, the authors have largely succeeded in giving a rather comprehensive
exposition of the finite element method and
its challenges, up to some current research
topics, in less than 500 pages, yet without
taking any unreasonable shortcut, by no
means an easy task. The material is carefully organized and, most importantly, all of
it is accessible to a well-prepared graduate
student. Each chapter ends with a useful
list of exercises and numerous examples are
provided. Therefore, this book can be recommended without hesitation to those who
wish to learn finite elements. The many
references to specialized papers will be of
interest to researchers as well.
PATRICK J. RABIER

University of Pittsburgh

Real Infinite Series. Ry Daniel D. Bonar and

Michael j. Khoury. Mathematical Association
of America, Washington, DC, 2006. $51.95.
xii+264 pp., hardcover. ISBN 0-88385-754-6.

Bonar and Khoury's book is a well-written

supplementary text for undergraduates.
The authors provide some historical background to their topic. By way of offering
a slightly more complete and accurate his-

BOOK REVIEWS

torical context, I begin with the following

remarks and then comment specifically on
this useful book.
Infinite series in various forms began to
appear in the work of European mathematicians in the second half of the seventeenth century. Nicholas Kaufmann (Mercator) found the series for log(l + a;) and applied it to the computation of logarithms in
the 1660s. John Wallis then proved the validity of the formula when |a;| < 1. Slightly
earlier, Lord Brouncker obtained the series
for Iog2 in a rigorous manner. Pietro Mengoli showed the divergence of the harmonic
series in the late 1650s but this result was
known to Nicole Oresme in the fourteenth
century. Mengoli went beyond this by giving a rigorous arithmetical treatment of the
logarithmic function by using partial sums
of the harmonic series. This and much more
was rediscovered by Euler about 75 years
later and it is Euler's treatment that we
usually see in books now.
It was Isaac Newton, however, who first
saw the tremendous power of infinite series as a tool in mathematical research. His
earliest work as a fourth-year undergraduate student at Cambridge University on the
problem of finding the area of a sector of a
circle had led him to the binomial series expansion of (1 x^) 2. From this he obtained
the series for arcsina; and then by inversion the series for sinx, and then for cosa;.
Interestingly, the Kerala school of mathematicians of fifteenth century India discovered the series for sina;, cosa;, and arctana;.
Needless to say, Newton was not aware of
this earlier work which was unknown beyond Kerala. Newton immediately saw that
infinite series were to algebra what infinite decimals were to arithmetic. He could
now perform division and root extraction of
polynomials by infinite series just as infinite
decimals could be employed to do similar
procedures for numbers. He consciously extended methods he had learned from Viete
for solving f{x) = 0 (methods which had
roots in the work of medieval Islamic mathematicians) to algebraic equations in two
variables f{x, y) = 0. He soon saw that
series were an invaluable tool for solving
differential equations which were appearing
in his work on calculus and its applications. Even before Newton's work was fnlly
known to the mathematical public, James

165

Gregory and Leibniz were making substantial progress in this topic. In particular,
Gregory appears to have known the Taylor
series expansion of a general function by
1671, more than four decades before Brook
Taylor published his formula.
Infinite series were freelj' used by eighteenth-century mathematicians, though the
most original contributions came from Euler, who evaluated exactly a large number
of series, gave methods for approximations,
and investigated transformation formulas.
On the whole, there was not much interest in determining convergence conditions,
though there were some isolated examples.
For instance, Leibniz gave a completely
rigorous treatment of the alternating series whose terms are decreasing in absolute value. Also, Stirling observed in 1717
that the series of positive terms X/J^j Un
is convergent if -^
>

and divergent if the inequality is reversed.

Maclaurin, in his 1742 book on calculus,
gave the integral test and D'Alembert made
some suggestions in the 1750s from which
the ratio test can easily be obtained. But
starting with Gauss in the nineteenth century, we observe the trend toward greater
rigor in analysis. Gauss gave a far reaching
generahzation of the ratio test, special cases
of which have been named for other mathematicians. After Gauss, the convergence
of series was taken up by many of the best
mathematicians of the nineteenth century,
among them Cauchy, Abel, and Dirichlet.
It is now taken for granted that infinite
series are among the most important objects in mathematics and a certain amount
of skill in dealing with them is very useful
in many areas of mathematics and its applications. Most students of mathematics
encounter infinite series first in a second
calculus course and then again in an introductory real analysis course. In both places,
due to the pressure of time and the need to
cover several other topics, one is able to do
only a few tests of convergence and apply
them to some simple series. The theory of
infinite series, however, is a huge subject
and three centuries of development have
produced a large number of methods, techniques, and problems. Clearly, one cannot
expect much of this theory to be covered in
any undergraduate course. But as the authors of this book point out, with just a little

166

BOOK REVIEWS

more theory than in a calculus course, one

may tackle a number of interesting infinite
series which could challenge the problemsolving skills of a motivated undergraduate
student. The authors offer a fine collection
of problems and puzzles related to infinite
series which readers may find of interest or
even intriguing and surprising.
The book starts with the usual tests
covered in calculus such as the comparison test, the ratio test, the integral test,
and the alternating series test. It then
moves on to more refined tests named
after Gauss, Abel, Dirichlet, Kummer,
Raabe, Dedekind, Schlomilch, and others.
The various tests are usually illustrated
by means of examples. The third chapter is devoted wholly to the harmonic series whose divergence is proved in twelve
ways, not all very different from one another. Included are the proofs by Nicole
Oresme (c. 1323-1382), Pietro Mengoli
(1625-1686), Jakob Bernoulh (1654-1705),
and Johann Bernoulli (1667-1748). The
logarithmic growth of the partial sums of the
harmonic series is proved and used to show
that the alternating sum of the harmonic
series converges to log 2. Several interesting
and amusing applications of the divergence
of the harmonic series are also given.
The fourth chapter discusses 107 interesting series problems called "gems." The
authors write that "... in this chapter we
include a collection of results that we find
intriguing for one reason or another, on
their own merits, not because of their place
in the larger fabric." Some of the problems
may have "slick" or unexpected proof techniques. The following examples may give
a sense of the types of problems and techniques contained in this chapter:
Show that
(1)

V^
/ 2
> arctan 1

(2)

= (Gem 34);
4
2

= log 3 (Gem 65);

oo

712

"^ n

converges

(Gem 108).

The first problem is solved by writing the

arctan as a difi^erence of two arctans by the
addition formula and then telescoping; the
second by using the logarithmic behavior of
the partial sums of the harmonic series; the
third by changing the order of summation
and then telescoping; and the fourth by reducing it to the convergence of a telescoping
infinite product.
The fifth chapter is a collection of all
the Putnam competition problems dealing
with infinite series. The problems are listed
twice, the first time without solutions to
invite readers to the challenge of solving
them. The solutions are provided with the
second listing of the problems. Needless to
say, all the problems here are interesting.
The sixth chapter discusses fallacious
arguments, geometric puzzles, and visual
methods of proofs related to infinite series.
Unfortunately, the authors give a somewhat incomplete historical impression of the
development of infinite series. They attach
names with dates to the various nineteenthcentury tests for convergence. But, except
for the discussion of harmonic series, where
names are mentioned, the same is not done
for those series which were first discovered
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Thus, Gem 34 and Gem 65, mentioned
above, are due to Euler, who summed these
series in exactly the same way as given in
the text. The technique of changing the order of summation used in Gem 85 actually
goes back to Newton. Again, the telescoping method, used repeatedly in the text,
appears in the works of Mengoli, Huygens,
and Leibniz, though the authors fail to point
this out.
In a section in Chapter 6, titled "Fallacies, Flaws and Flimfiam," the authors
give an example of how changing the order of summation could lead to absurd results. They comment that the analysis here
"would do an eighteenth century mathematician proud." This gives a very false
impression of the work of the eighteenthcentury mathematicians. As is evident from
their statements on series and their appropriate use of convergent and divergent
series, the seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury mathematicians well understood
the meaning of convergence and divergence,
even though they did not set out precise definitions. Moreover, Euler made conscious

BOOK REVIEWS

use of divergent series according to clearly

evident guidelines. A good summary of Euler's ideas and results on this topic can be
found in the first two chapters of G. H.
Hardy's Divergent Series (Oxford University Press, 1949).
Apart from the above-mentioned historical shortcomings, the book contains a good
collection of problems on series which are
discussed in a very readable fashion. The
material in the book supplements the discussion of series in calculus and introductory real analysis courses. The annotated
bibliography gives suggestions on how a
reader can further pursue the study of infinite series and products. This text can
also be used by students preparing for the
Putnam competition or by students who
simply enjoy solving challenging problems.
For these purposes, the book fills a gap
in undergraduate texts and may be recommended.
RANJAN ROY
Betoit College

Computer Algebra Recipes: An Introduc..

tory Guide to the Mathematical Models
o f Science. By Richard H. Enns and George
C. McCuire. Springer-Verlag, New York, 2006.
$59.95. x-f430 pp., softcover. ISBN 0-38725767-5.

This is a revised and expanded second

edition of Computer Algebra Recipes: A
Gourmet's Guide to the Mathematical Models of Science. Indeed, it has expanded to
two volumes, though only the first had appeared at the time of this review. The authors state that their aim is to introduce the
reader to what they call "the 'new' computational science based on the utilization of
a CAS [computer algebra system]." Maple
is by no means the only capable CAS, but
it is the only one considered in this book.
Enns and McGuire mainly use Maple for
symbolic manipulation, analytical derivation, and visualization of results, but it has
substantial numerical capabilities that they
use in discussing some topics.
Any author of a book based on mathematical software must deal with issues like
the version and distribution of code. Enns
and McGuire expect readers to have the lat-

167

est version of Maple, namely, version 10. I

have version 9.5 on my home computer and
found that the very first example would
not run without modification. After experimenting with version 9 and version 10 at
the office, I concluded that it really would be
best to have version 10 when going through
this book. Computations in Maple are organized as "worksheets" that are normally
run interactively with the user telling Maple
to execute a command when ready to move
on. Each topic is presented in the form
of a lighthearted story with the analysis
and associated commands discussed in the
order that they appear in the worksheet.
The discussion explains how to solve the
problem with Maple and, in particular, the
syntax of the commands. A reader can follow the discussion by retrieving the worksheet from a CD that comes with the book
and seeing what happens after executing
each command. Maple has packages and
commands that provide high-level computational tools. Perhaps for this reason, a
large fraction of the commands, and correspondingly the discussion in the text, have
to do with visualization of the results.
The authors recommend that readers go
straight through the book. After an introduction of 10 pages, which includes a
brief introduction to Maple presented in
the form of a typical model, there are three
main parts. "The Appetizers," pp. 11-118,
consists of two chapters with four sections,
each with two to four subsections. "The
Entrees," pp. 119-316, has four chapters
with a total of 35 subsections. I took their
advice, but after such a large meal I sampled only two of the 21 subsections in the
two chapters of "The Desserts," pp. 317416. Each subsection is devoted to one topic
and is followed by a number of exercises of
a similar nature to provide practice with
both tools and analysis.
Section 8.1.5 on the "Rings of Saturn"
will serve as an example. It begins by developing a model that is analyzed with the
assistance of Maple to obtain the Roche
limit. A nonlinear difference equation that
has a qualitative behavior like that of the
rings of Saturn is then presented and justified with "arguments [that] are a combination of fundamental physical principles
and some 'hand-waving'." Like many of the
models of the text, physical data is used