Ian.BurnetteMar 8
Omar Antolín
There is much truth to this post about about #math textbooks.
Jan 25 at 5:19pmWeb
Show threadSarah SammisJan 25
@oantolin True.
Show threadTheMagicalCJan 26
@oantolin shout out discrete structures by @MotivicKyle and David Perkinson
Show threadWooShellJan 26
@oantolin I'm not even asking why text books go to 300$, no matter the design..
Show threadRobin AdamsMar 8

@WooShell @oantolin I remembered this article giving a horrifying insight into the American textbook process. Especially the quote "The books are done and we still don't have an author! I must sign someone today!" (The 'author' probably wrote no more than the introduction.)

Found it again and oh wow, it's more than 20 years old. It was fresh in my memory.

Still, here's how things were done in 2004 and I can't imagine it's got any better.

"My assignment was to reduce a stack of pages 17 inches high, supplied by 40 writers, to a 3-inch stack that would sound as if it had all come from one source. The original text was just ore. A few of the original words survived, I suppose, but no whole sentences.

To avoid the unwelcome appearance of originality at this stage, editors send their writers voluminous guidelines. I am one of these writers, and this summer I wrote a ten-page story for a reading program. The guideline for the assignment, delivered to me in a three-ring binder, was 300 pages long."

https://www.edutopia.org/textbook-publishing-controversy

A Textbook Example of What's Wrong with Education

A former schoolbook editor parses the politics of educational publishing.

Edutopia
Show threadMoriel 🏳️‍⚧️Jan 26

@oantolin

Don't forget: Everyone ignores the title and just calls it a cutesy nickname based on the author's name, like "Baby Rudin", means this book is probably already on your shelf.

Show threadIgigogJan 28
@moriel @oantolin the dragon book lives in my heart
Show threadclang-enbyJan 27

@oantolin

This applies to electronics textbooks as well

Show thread0xC0DEC0DE07EAJan 27
@oantolin Lay’s Linear Algebra.
Show threadLa GuiriJan 27
@oantolin there's a book called Gimson's pronunciation of English, first edition 1936, which is the only phonetics book you'll ever need. Revisions have a different name in small print. It's still the Gimsons.
Show threadElizabeth  Jan 27

@oantolin one of the best textbooks I ever read was Calculus Made Easy

It is 116 years old

It still slaps

Show threadElisabeth MJan 27
@Elizafox @oantolin on my shelf!
Show threadBlake C. StaceyJan 28
@Elizafox @oantolin I made an updated edition based on the @gutenberg_org copy. It updates various small things like Edwardian terminology:
https://www.sunclipse.org/2023/10/calculus-made-easy/
Calculus Made Easy | Science After Sunclipse

Show threadvarx/socialJan 29
@bstacey @Elizafox @oantolin I rather liked "Quick Calculus", which was an excellent introduction to the basics of calculus (and some trig).
Show threadRAKMar 9
@varx @bstacey @Elizafox @oantolin: Bought that one myself recently when I went back for an engineering Master's after a long time out of education.
Show threadProject GutenbergJan 29

@bstacey @Elizafox @oantolin

Our edition is available here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33283

#books #mathematics

Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson

Free kindle book and epub digitized and proofread by volunteers.

Project Gutenberg
Show threadPwassonchat the enby catboyMar 6
@bstacey @Elizafox @oantolin @gutenberg_org So, I'll probably never read either version because I'm not studying math, but it sounds like something many people might want and publishers are not delivering (considering textbook prices, maybe that's for the best).
Show threadCrazyDogLadySezPEACEMar 6
@pwassonchat @bstacey @Elizafox @oantolin @gutenberg_org Textbooks became a racket in the … help me out, Boomers, I think the 70’s?
Show threadStarkRGJan 27
@oantolin This also applies to other fields of study.
Show threadEmily_SMar 6

@StarkRG @oantolin worse, that one is referred to entirely by the last inital of the authors, k&r which seems to be a very computer science way to do it.

(And it's not like those two are not famous for anything else either)

Show threadOmar AntolínMar 6
@emily_s @StarkRG Maybe it is a computer science thing. I just realized that I (a mathematician) call that book "Kernighan and Ritchie". The only thing I call "K&R" is the style of brace placement and indentation.
Show threadPassengerJan 27

@oantolin

My old Young & Freedman from undergraduate is holding up one end of my wife's electronic piano and Boas & Stroud is holding up the other end.

Show threadiainbertramMar 6

@passenger @oantolin Young and Freedman has gone the way of the 300 euro book.

These days you can usually find a good open source alternative no reason to fund academic publishing

Show threadJoe WJan 27
@oantolin Counterexample: John Kruschke's book "Doing Bayesian Data Analysis" it has cutesy puppies on the cover. Good book, used it a lot.
Show threadlizzzzardJan 28
@drchaos @oantolin why puppies though?
Show threadJoe WJan 28
@lizzard @oantolin I think he explains it in the book with "because they are cute and who doesn't like puppies?" I found it hard to argue with that....
Show threadlizzzzardJan 28
@drchaos @oantolin agreed!
Show threadOmar AntolínJan 28
@drchaos @lizzard wait a second, if you found it hard to argue against that, does that mean you tried to argue against it?
Show threadJoe WJan 28
@oantolin @lizzard Sure, because I'm a stupid boring geek and thought puppies had no place on the cover of a serious maths textbook.
Show threadlizzzzardJan 28
@drchaos @oantolin as all math geeks are, obviously 😸
Show threadJoe WJan 28

@lizzard @oantolin I resent that implication.

I am a physicist 😁😉

Show threadPeter BrettFeb 22

@drchaos My partner confirms that Kruschke is a counterexample, but also that it started off life in the “default LaTeX cover page”

@oantolin

Show threadAnn T. PhởJan 27
@oantolin What really chaps my ass is that math & science books used to be $300+ due to manual typesetting of complex equations. The digital age replaced that need, but the prices never came down.
Show threadAxel HartmannJan 28

@DrSaucy @oantolin - no, they were never that expensive before. The astronomical prices started after digitalization.

In fact, the prices were in the low to mid double digits because that fit with the general cost of education, which was much lower. We went on strike when tuition aka "semester fee" was introduced - 50€ at the time, later deemed unconstitutional and repealed.

Show threaddonJan 27
@oantolin my database teacher just handed out copies of her "book" chapter by chapter. Best ever.
Show threadclewJan 28

do you still have them? has it been published?

@donlamb_1 @oantolin

Show threaddonJan 28
@clew @oantolin I don't. That class was back in 2012.
Show threadRoss DuncanJan 27
@oantolin Addendum : if the title is "Introduction to ..." this book is not suitable for anyone who has not already the studied the subject at the graduate level for several years.
Show threadOmar AntolínJan 27
@rossquantum
Show threadOmar AntolínJan 27
@rossquantum I found the author of that brilliant meme! It's Davide Castelvecchi, using a meme format devised by mathstodon don, @christianp! See this blog post for other nice fake math books: https://aperiodical.com/2022/05/didnt-graduate-texts-in-mathematics/
Didn’t Graduate Texts in Mathematics

Every now and then a phrase pops into my head and won’t leave until I write it down or tell it to someone else. One day the little voice in my head suggested putting “Didn’t&#8221…

The Aperiodical
Show threadRoss DuncanJan 28
@oantolin @christianp My knowledge of this effect definitely predates memes, although I did enjoy the link.
Show threadElisabeth MJan 27
@oantolin I like how the last one is basically a zine
Show threadenfaJan 27
@oantolin I think this might be the OG #tumblr post, can't find 'cauchys-special-boy' anywhere, might have changed blog name.
https://www.tumblr.com/ceausescue/740165166339063808/if-theres-one-thing-ive-learned-from-my-math
Post by @ceausescue

💬 1  🔁 2798  ❤️ 4558 · if there's one thing ive learned from my math education it's the ability to judge a textbook by it's cover: fancy cover with actual picture, fewer than 15 years old, $300: a…

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Show threadOmar AntolínJan 27
@enfa Thanks for finding this!
Show threadAmyJan 27

@oantolin the 300 euro book will also have no solutions, just final answers to selected exercises. there is a solutions manual (with solutions to selected exercises) but you can only buy it if you are a teacher.

The answer numbers also change by edition to make sure it is an absolute pain to use if you buy the book and the solutions second hand of different editions

Show threadaburka 🫣Jan 27
@amy @oantolin and it's a required purchase for intro level classes of course
Show threadaburka 🫣Jan 27
@oantolin I think this applies to computer science textbooks too, except that if it has some unhinged shit like dragons or dinosaurs on the cover then it's probably also good
Show threadKevin Boyd (he/him) 🇨🇦Jan 27

@aburka @oantolin Yep, exactly.

I'm holding onto three textbooks from my college days. Two are plain and boring, informative but a bit of a slog.

One is glossy and useless and destined for (eventually) a burn pile. Perhaps when I retire.

Show threadMoos-a-dee 🫎Jan 27
@oantolin maybe also true for my programming classes. 😅
Show threadVirginicusMar 6
@Moosader @oantolin The name ‘Rachel Wil Shah “Moose” Singh’ is like a voyage around the world in a single line.
Show threaddraNgNonJan 27

@oantolin can confirm

just by looking at the textbooks on my shelf

Show threadTodd KnarrJan 27
@oantolin Same in software development, cf. "Knuth", "Stevens", "K&R", "Stroustrup".
Show threadchinmay 🐋Jan 27
@oantolin (not niche or strictly maths) David Mount's lecture notes on Computational Geometry
Show threadClifton RoystonJan 28

@oantolin

I still have my Mathematical Logic and Set Theory textbook from almost 50 years ago - handwritten by the professor, W.W. Tait, xeroxed, and handed out chapter by chapter in the class.

Cover? Certainly not! I hand-wrote my own cover/table of contents on the binders I put them into.

Absolutely the best.

Show threadtessaraktJan 28

@oantolin Harro Heuser, Analysis. Really thorough and well-structured math textbook. Still was too stupid or not interested enough at the time, grade 2.7 (German grades - 1.0 is the best, 4.0 is narrowly passing) in the exam. But that's not the author's fault.

On the other hand, never really got warm with Albrecht Beutelspacher, Lineare Algebra. Quite short, but maybe that's part of the problem.

Show threadtessaraktJan 28

@oantolin I think Goos and Waite at some point just put their Compiler Construction textbook online for free as a PDF ...

Were attribute grammars ever seriously used in a practical project, by the way?

Show threadAnalog AIJan 28

@oantolin My favorite math book:

Plain light green cover:
"Advanced Calculus"
Author Nickerson.
1959

Just looked it up: New edition available for Kindle, and someone is selling (replica) first editions, leather bound, for ages 10 and up. [for all those 10 year olds who've had a year of calculus and now want to study calculus on manifolds]. From the description of possible defects due to "age", I'm pretty sure it's one of the companies that gets a book, cuts of the binding, and feeds it into a copier: but now you can get your copy bound in "leather".

Show thread/usr/local/goth @ homeJan 28
@oantolin I miss my linear algebra text book. It just had the course name and the prof's name on it and we picked it up for $25 at the print shop
Show threadclewJan 28

@oantolin And Dover Editions! "This is a permanent book".

Just picked one off the shelf -- Introduction to Graph Theory -- it falls open about 3/4 of the way through where the four-color theorem is introduced.

*I've* never gotten that far in that book. Treats in store!

Show threadAlex HedgesMar 9

@clew @oantolin

Are you referring to _Introduction to Graph Theory_ by Richard J. Trudeau (https://store.doverpublications.com/products/9780486318660)? If so, do you recommend it?

I've been wanting to learn graph theory for a while, and this seems like it could be a good place to start.

Introduction to Graph Theory

Show threadclewMar 10

No, I have _ Introduction to Graph Theory_ by Chartrand. And as I say I’ve never gotten all the way through.

Originally titled _ Graphs as Mathematical Models_ and it’s built mostly on applied problems. Formalize set theory is all in an appendix (with problem sets).

@aphedges @oantolin