Tell HN: I am going to host "Real Analysis" book club meetings

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 11:30 PM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #11

Anyone looking at Real Analysis might look at Terry Tao's book, which is both conversational and friendly but also rigorous, starting from set theory and building all the way up.

Post by TZubiri » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 11:52 PM UTC

Post by mysore » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 11:52 PM UTC

ww520 wrote: post #16

Excellent idea. Real Analysis was the hardest course I took back in college. Too bad I've lost the book over the years. It's an old edition.

Post by mysore » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 11:52 PM UTC

noleary wrote: post #12

Cool idea! Am personally too scarred from taking analysis back in college to participate :)

Post by impendia » Thu, Aug 01, 2024, 12:13 AM UTC

zeitgeistcowboy wrote: post #20

impendia wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a math professor, who got through most of Rudin as an undergrad. Felt like a form of hazing at the time ;) In my opinion, Rudin is a great book if you're reading it under the guidance of a good teacher. For self-study, I don't know of any particular alternative to recommend, but I would select something more "talky" -- i.e. which goes more into the background, motivation, and philosophy of the subject.

I was a CS undergrad at MIT and took the fancy math people’s analysis class for a math requirement and they used Rudin and it killed me. We went through like 170 pages of it for one semester. The professor was Sigurdur Helgason. I went into office hours one day and ask him a question. He slowly walked to his window and replied “the ravines in Iceland are deep” and it was at that point that I realized I was an enginee…