<p>I bought the 2nd edition of Calculus for Biology and Medicine by Neuhauser (VERY cheaply) and it turns out that we need the 3rd edition for Math 3A. I've compared my book to the new one, and I can honestly not find a single difference between the two in my general comparison. </p>
<p>Does anyone know what the difference is?</p>
<p>Are the problems the same and numbered the same? Publishers often re-order problems to make the editions incompatible.</p>
<p>They usually rearrange/add chapters and problems but the overall material should be the same, but with math classes I think it is especially important to make sure that the problems are the same because often times professors assign problems from the textbook for graded assignments</p>
<p>Obviously… that’s why one of them is 3rd edition and the other is 2nd edition</p>
<p>My dad is a professor at another school and him and one of the other professors there did some study and found out that for math/science textbooks the material will pretty much be comparable within 2 editions. The material changes a tiny bit but mostly the textbook companies are out to make money on new editions.</p>
<p>But everyone else is right in saying that the problems most likely will be ordered differently.</p>
<p>The problems are probably rearranged but the text is basically the same.
Use your 2nd Ed for reading the material.
Go to the library class reserve to get 3rd Ed for the HW problems.</p>
<p>I did the same thing as you OP. Bought 2nd edition for $40 with solution manual and realized that the problems are randomly different and my prof collects hw and grades it so I was getting annoyed having to double check every section by checking out a book at powell and comparing problems and writing down the different ones so I just bought the damn 3rd edition for $120+. Now I wish I didn’t spend the $40. </p>
<p>It’s really not that different if the hw isn’t being graded. You’ll learn and do the exact same thing. Only like 4-5 problems are different each section so if you have assignments being collected and graded it gets annoying as **** to always double check everything.</p>