Open Textbook Initiative
aimath.org
Open Textbook Initiative
1–10 of 89 posts
Re: Open Textbook Initiative
#2Thanks for posting this.
Re: Open Textbook Initiative
#3In case you didn't know:
American Institute of Mathematics is a research non-profit ran by one of the Fry brothers (of Fry Electronics).
At least until recently, it's been run out of the back of the office space of their headquarters location on Brokaw road in San Jose.
Now that the store (and the company) is defunct, I'm happy to see that AIM is still kicking.
Can't vouch for everything that they do, but they have been running pretty solid geometric group theory workshops on the reg. I got to attend one, and have good memories of it.
I'm still sad that the store has shut down. They cite COVID as a reason, but they've been in liquidation mode long before that (at some point, I couldn't even get a USB flash drive there!). I hope that AIM will go on as a legacy.
Re: Open Textbook Initiative
#4As someone who's never studied real math (only Physics math), I found the book "Abstract Algebra: Theory and Applications" extremely interesting, in part because it leads you to understand asymmetric cryptography and error-correcting codes. Also the SAGE exercises are neat.
Re: Open Textbook Initiative
#5College level textbooks in USA are a total racket. The major textbooks come out with a new revision roughly annually, where the material is reorganized enough to change section and exercise numbers. The purpose is to destroy the used textbook market, as assigned reading and homework will not correspond to older revisions of the book. Then students are forced to buy new books and the publishers can make big profits.
Re: Open Textbook Initiative
#6College level textbooks in USA are a total racket. The major textbooks come out with a new revision roughly annually, where the material is reorganized enough to change section and exercise numbers. The purpose is to destroy the used textbook market, as assigned reading and homework will not correspond to older revisions of the book. Then students are forced to buy new books and the publishers can make big profits.
We have the same problem with high school (videregående skole) here in Norway. It should be possible for a child to use their older sibling's textbooks, especially for subjects like mathematics and physics, but very often the school requires a particular edition.
Re: Open Textbook Initiative
#7As someone who's never studied real math (only Physics math), I found the book "Abstract Algebra: Theory and Applications" extremely interesting, in part because it leads you to understand asymmetric cryptography and error-correcting codes. Also the SAGE exercises are neat. http://abstract.ups.edu/aata/aata-toc.html
Sage looks neat. Is it similar to Mathematica ?
Re: Open Textbook Initiative
#8College level textbooks in USA are a total racket. The major textbooks come out with a new revision roughly annually, where the material is reorganized enough to change section and exercise numbers. The purpose is to destroy the used textbook market, as assigned reading and homework will not correspond to older revisions of the book. Then students are forced to buy new books and the publishers can make big profits.
We have the same problem with high school (videregående skole) here in Norway. It should be possible for a child to use their older sibling's textbooks, especially for subjects like mathematics and physics, but very often the school requires a particular edition.
At my high school, the textbooks were given to us and then we returned it at the end of the year for the next cohort (we'd right our names on list in the back with the current condition to keep track). I'm not sure if this is how other US high schools did it.
Re: Open Textbook Initiative
#9Great resource, thanks for sharing. As someone who wants to "re-learn" some college level math, this is invaluable.
Re: Open Textbook Initiative
#10As someone who's never studied real math (only Physics math), I found the book "Abstract Algebra: Theory and Applications" extremely interesting, in part because it leads you to understand asymmetric cryptography and error-correcting codes. Also the SAGE exercises are neat. http://abstract.ups.edu/aata/aata-toc.html
Sage looks neat. Is it similar to Mathematica ?
Yes and no.
It's a computer algebra system, of which Mathematica is an example.
But the real power of Mathematica lies in its language.
SAGE wraps many libraries in a Python syntax, so the core language is different.