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My Top 100 Programming, Computer and Science Books: Part Three

catonmat.net

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Re: My Top 100 Programming, Computer and Science Books: Part Three

#11

Post by pkrumins »

kenjackson wrote: post #10

Good books it seems, but the one book I'd never seen before was the Thermodynamics book. He makes this claim: "From my own experience this book can be worked through in two full nights" Really? In my experience there's no way I could make it through a 150 page physics book in two nights, unless I already knew the material. And even then I think it would be tough. That said, if this is a book I could do in two nights,…

Deadlines and exams make you do wonders. I really worked through this book in two full nights. You just need to focus really hard and deadlines help you do that. I was familiar with the material before but needed a refresh. There are not that many proofs and the book dimensions are small. There is not that much text per page. Totally doable. Good intro book.

Re: My Top 100 Programming, Computer and Science Books: Part Three

#12

Post by Enzolangellotti »

kenjackson wrote: post #10

Good books it seems, but the one book I'd never seen before was the Thermodynamics book. He makes this claim: "From my own experience this book can be worked through in two full nights" Really? In my experience there's no way I could make it through a 150 page physics book in two nights, unless I already knew the material. And even then I think it would be tough. That said, if this is a book I could do in two nights,…

Unless you already know the material it will require a week or more. The book is very discoursive and clear, there are plenty of exercises and examples (which I assume the author of the list didn't do). I haven't proceeded past page 30 as I'm currently learning high school mathematics and I'm not yet comfortable with integrals and the notation but I think it's a book you could easily digest once you've gotten the prerequisites.

Re: My Top 100 Programming, Computer and Science Books: Part Three

#14

Post by kqr2 »

kenjackson wrote: post #10

Good books it seems, but the one book I'd never seen before was the Thermodynamics book. He makes this claim: "From my own experience this book can be worked through in two full nights" Really? In my experience there's no way I could make it through a 150 page physics book in two nights, unless I already knew the material. And even then I think it would be tough. That said, if this is a book I could do in two nights,…

This book is also available in the public domain from Project Gutenberg Australia:

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1305021p.pdf

Re: My Top 100 Programming, Computer and Science Books: Part Three

#15

Post by jeffwass »

kenjackson wrote: post #10

Good books it seems, but the one book I'd never seen before was the Thermodynamics book. He makes this claim: "From my own experience this book can be worked through in two full nights" Really? In my experience there's no way I could make it through a 150 page physics book in two nights, unless I already knew the material. And even then I think it would be tough. That said, if this is a book I could do in two nights,…

I had a quick skim of the Project Gutenberg link another poster gave. I wouldn't recommend this book if you are looking for a modern understanding(from within the past 50 years), as it only covers classical thermodynamics, and not statistical mechanics. This book feels like it's over a century old, and while classical thermodynamics may seem simple and pure, it's not at all how scientists in the past 50 yrs would think about, model, or analyse such systems and processes.

It's really ironic that it's authored by Fermi but doesn't touch on quantum mechanical distributions, for example his own Fermi-Dirac distribution for ensembles of fermions such as electrons in a metal.

Modern approaches typically derive the thermodynamic laws from the underlying statistical properties of large system sizes. And are much more powerful since you can handle variances and higher moments beyond just the mean. And also let you apply quantum mechanics and to see how Fermions differ from Bosons, and derive cool things like the Blackbody spectrum, or Fermi energy of an electron gas.

Decent books are Reif, Kittel & Kroemer (we've used both these at undergrad level classes), or Landau Lifshitz volume 5, and one by Feynmann at the grad level.

Disclaimer - I TA'd stat mech / thermo four times during my PhD.

Re: My Top 100 Programming, Computer and Science Books: Part Three

#16

Post by deciplex »

benjaminmikiten wrote: post #6

Very much looking forward to the rest of this list. Obviously there are tons of lists on the topic, but his list has been slightly different so far, and his personal takes have been nice. Here are the other two posts in the series: http://www.catonmat.net/blog/top-100-books-part-one/ http://www.catonmat.net/blog/top-100-books-part-two/ And here are a few more links on this general topic in case anyone's not seen them…

Your link to "What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?" is broken. It appears the page has been deleted.
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