Theoretical Methods in the Physical Sciences

This text is designed for a one-term course. It uses the Maple package as an integral part of learning how to solve a range of problems taken from elementary physics, astronomy, chemistry and geology. At the same time it encourages the reader to think about what is being calculated, to relate results to physical experience, to make order-of-magnitude estimates of both answers and errors, and to carry out dimensional and unit checks of calculations. It is packaged with a 3.5" diskette containing Maple worksheets for each chapter and data files of physical constants, conversion factors, and chemical isotopes. The diskette is formatted on MS-Windows, but its files can also be used on Apple and Unix platforms.