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Ask HN: Older textbooks/papers you consider classics still worth studying today?

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Re: Ask HN: Older textbooks/papers you consider classics still worth studying today?

#71

Post by ohiovr »

Mechanics and Thermodynamics of propulsion by Peterson and Hill explains most of the rocketry systems still in use today and the first edition was published in 1965. I think it is interesting that fundamental boost rocketry has changed very little since that time.

Re: Ask HN: Older textbooks/papers you consider classics still worth studying today?

#72

Post by graycat »

graycat wrote: post #34

Evar D. Nering, Linear Algebra and Matrix Linear Algebra and Matrix Theory* Kenneth Hoffmann And Ray Kunze. Linear Algebra , 2nd Edition, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1971. https://www.zuj.edu.jo/download/linear-algebra-2nd-edition-k... Halmos, Finite Dimensional Vector Spaces George E. Forsythe and Cleve B. Moler, Computer Solution of Linear Algebraic Systems Paul R. Halmos, Naive Set Theory , Van No…

Here are URLs of PDFs of two of the references above:

Leo Breiman, "Statistical Modeling: The Two Cultures," Statistical Science, Vol. 16, No. 3, 199–231, 2001.

http://projecteuclid.org/DPubS/Repository/1.0/Disseminate?vi...

Paul R. Halmos, "The Theory of Unbiased Estimation", Annals of Mathematical Statistics, Volume 17, Number 1, pages 34-43, 1946.

https://projecteuclid.org/download/pdf_1/euclid.aoms/1177731...

Re: Ask HN: Older textbooks/papers you consider classics still worth studying today?

#73

Post by odonnellryan »

jessriedel wrote: post #6

Claude Shannon's original 1948 paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" launched the entire field of information theory. It's 50 pages, highly readable, and pedagogical. The source of its magic is that Shannon introduces and concretely grounds an essentially new ontological concept of vast applicability. And it has 100,000 citations . http://math.harvard.edu/~ctm/home/text/others/shannon/entrop...

I always thought it'd be a really cool start-up idea to have a service that prints, binds, etc.. and mails you within a few days a printed paper like this.

I probably have 10 papers floating around, loose pages. Annoying. I print them when I want to read them but of course rarely can immediately.

Re: Ask HN: Older textbooks/papers you consider classics still worth studying today?

#78

Post by epsilon-greedy »

pmcjones wrote: post #69
epsilon-greedy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where can I find a list of those papers? I just spent a minute trying to find something using Google but didn't manage to find anything

https://amturing.acm.org/alphabetical.cfm links to a page for each awardee, with a link to their lecture.

Thanks a lot! I totally overlooked the lecture links

Re: Ask HN: Older textbooks/papers you consider classics still worth studying today?

#79

Post by epsilon-greedy »

_unknown_ wrote: post #66
epsilon-greedy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where can I find a list of those papers? I just spent a minute trying to find something using Google but didn't manage to find anything

This book has the first 20. I have read through the first 5 or so and highly recommend it. https://www.amazon.com/ACM-Turing-Award-Lectures-1966-1985/d...

Thanks! I might end up reading that

Re: Ask HN: Older textbooks/papers you consider classics still worth studying today?

#80

Post by yesenadam »

alok-g wrote: post #58
bookofjoe wrote: post #46

"Science and Sanity" — Alfred Korzybski (1933) http://pialogue.info/books/Science-and-Sanity-Korzybski.pdf "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" — Erving Goffman (1956) https://monoskop.org/images/1/19/Goffman_Erving_The_Presenta...

It would help to read your commentary on these.

Well, I don't know if mine will help. I love Goffman's book, it's super-readable, enlightening. It's about the different roles and..settings people operate in, and the rules and customs of those places, e.g. backstage, shopfront, military ranks, hospitality etc. Full of great stories quoted from an impressive number of sources, very diverse.

Korzybski's book used to be huge, recommended by all kinds of famous people. I spent a few hours reading in it one day, to see for myself. (Plus had heard a fair bit about it before.) Korzybski basically seems a huge crank, who thought himself and his baby General Semantics[0] as important as Aristotle. The quote one always hears from it is "the map is not the territory", and well, that's about the only thing worth quoting from it. Plus he tried to get rid of "is" from the language, i.e. "A is B".[1] Seemingly because such sentences are deceptive - if you say "The car is red", well, it's many things besides red, so the sentence is a lie is many ways. It's a very strange objection. As if it's bad because it doesn't say everything, just one thing. Aristotle he's not.

Also there's an interesting contraption featured in the book, made of metal with holes, strings, plugs, used to make maps of levels of concepts. I don't know if it's practically useful.

Apart from that, what makes it a big slab of a book, are a host of chapters on different academic subjects serving as introductions to those subjects, e.g. one on maths, calculus I think, supposedly illustrating general semantics applied there. These seem mostly intended to give the impression Korzybski is a genius polymath. People who didn't know anything about that subject might learn something from that, and feel the book taught them something. But it's nothing to do with Korzybski's theories.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_semantics

[1] This was extended by a student of Korzybski's to E-Prime, a language without any form of the verb 'to be'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime

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