A Primer of Real Functions (Mathematical Association of America Textbooks, Series Number 13)

This is a revised, updated and significantly augmented edition of a classic Carus Monograph (a bestseller for over 25 years) on the theory of functions of a real variable. Earlier editions of this classic covered sets, metric spaces, continuous functions, and differentiable functions. The greatly expanded fourth edition adds sections on measurable sets and functions, the Lebesgue and Stieltjes integrals, and applications.The book retains the informal, chatty style of the previous editions, remaining accessible to readers with some mathematical sophistication and a background in calculus. The book is thus suitable either for self-study or for supplemental reading in a course on advanced calculus or real analysis.Not intended as a systematic treatise, this book has more the character of a sequence of lectures on a variety of interesting topics connected with real functions. Many of these topics are not commonly encountered in undergraduate textbooks: for example, the existence of continuous everywhere-oscillating functions (via the Baire category theorem); the universal chord theorem; two functions having equal derivatives, yet not differing by a constant; and application of Stieltjes integration to the speed of convergence of infinite series.This book recaptures the sense of wonder that was associated with the subject in its early days. A must for your mathematics library. "This is a revised, updated, and augmented edition of a classic Carus monograph with a new chapter on integration and its applications. Earlier editions covered sets, metric spaces, continuous functions, and differentiable functions. To that, this edition adds sections on measurable sets and functions and the Lebesgue and Stieltjes integrals. The book retains the informal chatty style of the previous editions. It presents a variety of interesting topics, many of which are not commonly encountered in undergraduate textbooks, such as the existence of continuous everywhere-oscillating functions; two functions having equal derivatives, yet not differing by a constant; application of Stieltjes integration to the speed of convergence of infinite series. For readers with a background in calculus, the book is suitable either for self-study or for supplemental reading in a course on advanced calculus or real analysis. Students of mathematics will find here the sense of wonder that was associated with the subject in its early days"--Publisher description

Revised edition of a classic Carus monograph with a new chapter on integration and its applications.

The Mathematics Teacher

I highly recommend this monograph to mathematics majors who wish to review or extend their knowledge of real analysis, and to workers in other fields who wish to learn of the major results of analysis.