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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?

#81
post #10

Not sure you’re looking for philosophy, but I keep a translation of the Tao Te Ching nearby at all times. It’s helped me stay centered and humble. Just to go meta: whatever book you learned something from originally/in college you should keep. It might not always be the best, but keeping the context of your original understanding can really help and speed up recollection when needed. (This probably applies most to te…

Good idea! I am a complete sucker for tracking down CS textbooks from my courses 20 plus years ago. And I like the hard copy versions. My outlook is, an engineer is known by the books he keeps.

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

#82

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...

After skimming the first page I now feel slightly foolish for not having realised before that a bit is short for binary digit.

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

#84
Previous posts have nicely covered almost all of the textbooks and papers I would have mentioned myself, including K&R's _C Programming_, Brooks' _Mythical Man-Month_, Feynman's Lectures, etc. The only glaring omission was any mention of the classic (1965) FFT paper by Cooley and Tukey: "An algorithm for the machine calculation of complex Fourier series." _Mathematics of Computation_, 19(90), 297–297. doi:10.1090/s0025-5718-1965-0178586-1 (https://www.eit.lth.se/fileadmin/eit/courses/eit085f/Cooley_...) I might also have added the _CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics_ that seems to have been on every working scientists's and engineer's bookshelf (including mine) during the mid-to-late 20th century. Still in print, nearing the 100th edition. Also, some of my old favorite textbooks that I used at University were not mentioned, including Thomas' _Calculus and Analytical Geometry_. I still have my red cloth covered Addison-Wesley 3rd edition, no longer in print, but a much later edition might still be in print.

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

#85
post #72
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...

Finite Dimensional Vector Spaces is a jewel. But I wish the typesetting was updated to something more modern. Same applies to Rudin.

I find well typeset TeX a joy to read. Whereas FDVS is a bit cramped and looks antique.

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

#86
post #15

K&R C is still an excellent resource for learning. C may not be the flashiest new thing, but it's still a very useful skill to have.

For sure get the second edition. The first edition is way, way out of date.

But the typesetting took such a dive downhill!

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

#87
post #85
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Finite Dimensional Vector Spaces is a jewel. But I wish the typesetting was updated to something more modern. Same applies to Rudin. I find well typeset TeX a joy to read. Whereas FDVS is a bit cramped and looks antique.

FDVS was written in 1942 when Halmos had just gotten his Ph.D. from J. Doob, author of Stochastic Processes in my list, at U. Illinois, and was an assistant to John von Neumann at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton.

IIRC Hilbert space was a von Neumann idea: It is first, just a definition -- complete inner product (dot product in much of physics and engineering) space. But the good stuff is (1) importance of the examples and (2) the theorems that show the consequences, e.g., in Fourier theory.

Well, the vector spaces of most interest in linear algebra are actually (don't tell anyone) finite dimensional Hilbert spaces. So, one role of FDVS is to provide a text on linear algebra that is also an introduction to Hilbert space, that is, that tries to use ideas that work in any Hilbert space to get the basic results in linear algebra.

The treatment of self-adjoint transformations and spectral theory are likely the most influenced by this role.

This role is accomplished so well that sometimes physics students starting on quantum mechanics are advised to get at least the start they need on Hilbert space from FDVS.

Sure, a better start is the one chapter on Hilbert space in Rudin's Real and Complex Analysis. The chapter there on the Fourier transform is also good, short, all theorems nicely proved, the main, early results made clear.

Also a good start on the basic results of self-adjoint matrices are the inverse and implicit function theorems given as nice exercises in the third edition of Rudin's Principles .... And spectral theory is in Rudin's Functional Analysis. Also get a bonus of a nice treatment of distributions, that is, replace the Dirac delta function usage in quantum mechanics.

For how to get the eigen value and orthogonal eigen vector results for self-adjoint matrices from the inverse and implicit (these two go together like ice cream and cake) function theorems is in Fleming, Functions of Several Variables. Then you will be off and running on factor analysis, principle components, the polar decomposition, the singular value decomposition, and more.

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