Consider a Spherical Cow: A Course in Environmental Problem Solving

If you are interested in getting better at solving quantitative problems, or just want a different set of fun, challenging problems to work on, buy this.Honestly I can't imagine someone interested in STEM not liking this book. It contains well posed quantitative problems that will make you think hard, and learn a lot about problem solving and estimation.This book is one of the two books I would recommend to anybody interested in getting better at solving quantitative problems, right besides "How to solve it".

I bought this as a required text when I took John Harte's class a couple years ago. His class was engaging and interesting, and this book was incredibly helpful when trying to solve environmental problems in a quantitative way. It was challenging and thought-provoking. I recommend his class to anyone at Cal, and recommend using this book to anyone who wants to get a better grasp at solving real-world science problems.

Lent one to a friend. To people who know high school algebra but avoided calculus in college, or the biologist or sociologist who want to know how to consider things quantitatively, this book is perfect. For the technical remainder who want good insights into many environmental processes and questions, it's also a great introduction. Don't miss Harte's follow-on "Consider a Cylindrical Cow".

You have to read every single line of this book and do the math along with Harte to understand him but its worth it.

An excellent extension from the spherical cow, a great base from which to develop an engaging and meaningful programme in mathematical modelling. This book has is a wonderful resource for teachers who wish to explore mathematics in the company of their course participants.

Ok book, not the sellers fault.

Nice book and great purchase

I was taught using this book when I was a graduate student. This book was my point of entry into environmental problem solving.I was just writing to a postdoctoral candidate: 'Ignorance is part of our strength, because ignorant people can ask very fundamental questions and then try to apply very simple models to get some kind of mechanistic understanding with maybe order-of-magnitude estimates. Not everybody likes this kind of "consider a spherical cow" thinking,'So, this book is still influencing my work, 30 years after it was first published.