Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Higher Math for Beginners (1987)

archive.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 99 posts

Re: Higher Math for Beginners (1987)

#31

Post by inglor_cz »

enriquto wrote: post #28
inglor_cz wrote: post #25

This is a good book. It would be even better if it were typeset in LaTeX. I wonder if such an effort could be financed from some kind of microgrants. Take old Soviet maths and physics books - they were very good! - translate them into English, possibly with small alterations (e.g. a QR code link to an animation), type them in LaTeX or AMSTeX and release them under a friendly license.

Do you think so? It looks really beautifully typeset to me.

Maybe it is just my problem, but I have hard time studying from a two-column book. I am mostly used to multiple columns in newspapers.

Re: Higher Math for Beginners (1987)

#33

Post by codetrotter »

shimonabi wrote: post #27
codetrotter wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book in the updated link [1] does not have the problem that the old link had I think, if you were talking about how for example on page 358 the page had become split so that the rightmost part of the page had been cut off and placed on the left side of the page. I didn’t check the other pages because I’m on mobile, but since page 358 looks good in the new link the others might too. [1]: https://archive.org/detail…

Look closely. The first half of the letter on each line is faded. (I'm the refering to the pages of the book, not the pages of the PDF)

Here's a screenshot of what I see when I look at page 358 of the updated link, which looks fine to me: https://snipboard.io/OwvDXH.jpg

I don't see the fading that you are talking about.

Meanwhile, here is a screenshot of the way that page 358 of the book in the original link is broken when I look at it both on desktop https://snipboard.io/G9ohqg.jpg and on mobile https://snipboard.io/VXYHC0.jpg

Re: Higher Math for Beginners (1987)

#34

Post by Throwaway1311 »

Reading the foreward

> These de­finitions, which are not at all simple for the > beginner, came to be used in the wrong context. > Textbooks presented them before any explanation was > given of the theory and its applications, there­ > by complicating an understanding of things that > were intuitively clear.

hear hear!

This problem is like most of the Wikipedia pages that I come across on 'complex' topics of not just maths but anything remotely intersting technically. I just give up in the end. Life is too short to be bothered with some editor's 'dick measuring' competition about how clever they.

Re: Higher Math for Beginners (1987)

#35

Post by alisonkisk »

Jensson wrote: post #13
keewee7 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually my view is the opposite. Older math books has a lot of practical examples. It seems like in the 90s and 2000s a lot of math books started being written by pure mathematicians who don't care about the applications of mathematics.

My understanding is that in the 90s and 2000s publishers started realizing that they could sell bare bones textbooks and then sell those problem examples in compendiums, effectively double dipping on each student. Edit: For example, books like this: https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Gregory-Grant/dp/B08FP7SNZJ > In addition to well-explained solutions, this manual includes corrections and clarifications to the classic text…

That solution book was written decades after the main textbook, by different authors.

Barebones texts books were common in math since Rudin in 1953 and probably earlier.

Re: Higher Math for Beginners (1987)

#36

Post by alisonkisk »

Jensson wrote: post #19
BossingAround wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because while the field of mathematics has probably not changed, the field of didactics has changed drastically, and the student expectations in 1980s and 2021 will be also drastically different.

Has it actually improved though? Every study I've seen says students are worse at maths today than 30 years ago, so to me it doesn't look like all that pedagogy research improved things. If things actually got better we should have strong evidence supporting that. Images are prettier, sure, but do students who study using modern books actually understand the material better after the course is done?

Can you link to some studies?

Re: Higher Math for Beginners (1987)

#37

Post by civilized »

Mandelmus wrote: post #22
Jensson wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has it actually improved though? Every study I've seen says students are worse at maths today than 30 years ago, so to me it doesn't look like all that pedagogy research improved things. If things actually got better we should have strong evidence supporting that. Images are prettier, sure, but do students who study using modern books actually understand the material better after the course is done?

I think attention spans have shortened (which is arguably devastating for maths), and the materials considered "state of the art in modern pedagogy" are the ones that take that into account in ways that a book from 1987 does not.

Like food and architecture, math pedagogy has been affected by the progressive diseases of modern civilization, so new often does not mean good.

Re: Higher Math for Beginners (1987)

#38

Post by rmm »

keewee7 wrote: post #12
BossingAround wrote: post #11

The crucial question is, is the text any good? My bias tells me it's next to impossible (but not actually impossible) for a text from 1987 to be 2021-beginner friendly, especially in a field like mathematics.

Actually my view is the opposite. Older math books has a lot of practical examples. It seems like in the 90s and 2000s a lot of math books started being written by pure mathematicians who don't care about the applications of mathematics.

This so much but in mechanical engineering. I was struggling in my course when I happened on a book written in 1980s in used book store for $1

It had worked examples, basic theory from foundation up, and was absent all superfluous info.

I credit it to passing my course and getting to where I am today. I still have it in my office to this day.

Re: Higher Math for Beginners (1987)

#39

Post by k__ »

My experience with learning math is that the first months are all about backtracking. You have to fill all your holes.

It's basically one big graph of concepts.

The tricky part is, most beginners simply don't know how to navigate that graph.

They see complex numbers with their exponentials and cos/sin forms and shut down.

They can learn all these concepts no problem, but finding what they need to learn defeats them.

Re: Higher Math for Beginners (1987)

#40

Post by bitcharmer »

Throwaway1311 wrote: post #34

Reading the foreward > These de­finitions, which are not at all simple for the > beginner, came to be used in the wrong context. > Textbooks presented them before any explanation was > given of the theory and its applications, there­ > by complicating an understanding of things that > were intuitively clear. hear hear! This problem is like most of the Wikipedia pages that I come across on 'complex' topics of not just…

Fully agreed. Maths topics pages on Wikipedia are useless for 99.9% of population. They just bombard you with alien phrases and concepts with zero explanation of what's what.

It's pretty useless if you want to learn anything

Post reply on HN