"Would also be accessible and engaging to students. The more common approach in this market has been to emphasize one of these dimensions or the other. For example, some texts have done well by sacrificing rigor in the name of user-friendliness. But although such books sometimes keep students happy, they often fail to prepare them for upper-division courses in the major. Others texts have succeeded by sacrificing accessibility in the name of rigor, where rigor all too often means little more than mathematical density. These courses overwhelm many undergraduates, and even those few who become adept at solving well-posed mathematical optimization problems are often baffled by questions drawn from everyday contexts"-- Provided by publisher