Why are textbooks in math and science so bad?

J77

Perhaps it would help if he had two heads?

kant, if you spent as much time reading a book as you've done *****ing on this thread you may start to learn something!

kant

You are not vey nice, and frankly my study habits is none of your ****ing concern. Maybe you should take your own advice, and stop hopping around this place. You made more post than me.

hrc969

Well, I think he's one of the best professors I have had. That's the hardest undergrad class I have had. Many people are scared to take him but for anyone who wants to learn a subject well, thats the guy you want to take the class from. Incidentally he had no complaints about the book. Some people complain about introducing the idea of a riemann surface but he liked that topic. Maybe the problem with that book is that its more suited for grad students than undergrads. When I took 246A (gradute complex analysis) the TA said that it was a good book for grad students and probably should not be used for undergrad. The problem is that a lot undergrads don't want to work hard enough to understand something. They want a book which tell them how to do every problem. They don't want to spend time struggling to learn. I think the struggle is a good thing. I don't know if I should say its neccessary although I would be inclined to think so. One of my professors recommended that we look at "old" book. Books about a subject that where written before it was completely developed because that way we can see the struggle and be able to understand the subject at a deeper level.


That's fine. I always go to lecture, it helps for understanding but it is not absolutely neccessary. Learning from a book is possible you just have to find a book you like (or several) and commit time to learning the subject.

That's fine. Spending alot of time on a certain topic, struggling through it helps you learn better than rushing through it.
I spent since winter 06 to the end of summer 06 (so around 9 months) reading the first chapter of several books on manifold theory. It took all of the winter quarter to get through the first few pages and I still did not get it to where I was satisfied. I would pick up one book and not be able to get thorugh the first few pages satisfactorily and pick up another one and another one. I spent much more that 6 measly hours trying to understand it.
When I took Manifold Theory (225A) last fall (fall 06), some of the undergrad students used to think it was really hard and wondered why I did not find it as hard. The answer is what I just told you. I struggled with it for a really long time, when I went to lecture everything he said I had seen and it made alot more sense to me than to some of the other undergrads who also went to lecture but had not seen the material before.
What kind of style do you prefer?

Yes and I stand by what I say.

http://www2.library.ucla.edu/libraries/533.cfm
That's the list of libraries at UCLA. The one you are thinking of is the Science and Engineering Library(SEL). The one in boelter is the Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Collection part of the Science and Engineering Library.

I guess you are not too incorrect in calling it that although that is not the proper name.


I know a pretty good persian student whose been a classmate of mine for three years now. But no. Why isn't hispanic or latino an option? I don't know what to think of your ommision of that as an option. It would have just been better to ask what my race is rather than making attempts to guess based on (who knows what). But anyways, I am mexican.

What I am really curious about is knowing why you named the races that you did in that order.

Oh and just to add to the recommendation of books for 131A, one of my favorite analysis books (probably my favorite) is Basic Analysis by Anthony W. Knapp. I always go to that book first if I need to recall anything from analysis.

las3rjock

As thus we have reached the heart of the matter. Ultimately you are responsible for your own learning, but you seem unwilling or unable to put in the time or find the resources required to understand the material, and apparently you are trying to shift the blame from yourself to the textbooks. Evidently you couldn't even be bothered to read the 7-page essay that I linked, because you seem to be waving around as evidence that textbooks suck, when nothing could be farther from the truth. The main point of the essay is that lectures and textbooks each have distinct and valuable roles in education. Korner points out that textbooks tend to be more complete, more reliable, and have better explanations than lectures (on page 2, he writes that "everything done in the lecture is better done in the textbooks"), but lectures have value both as a guide to reading a textbook, and as an opportunity to watch an expert at work. But not matter what, learning requires that you put in the necessary work. If it takes 6 hours to understand a portion of a textbook, it doesn't necessarily mean that the textbook is badly written--it just means that it required 6 hours for you to grasp or internalize that particular concept. Reading a textbook is different than reading a novel. As you read a textbook, you should be making mental or written notes of key concepts, thinking of examples/counterexamples that demonstrate concepts, filling in the omitted steps of proofs and derivations, and/or solving simple problems to get practice using the concepts. Clearly that is quite a bit of work, but if you are unwilling to put in the amount of work necessary for you to learn the material, then you are wasting everyone's time, especially your own.

light_bulb

just wondering, for ONE subject do most of you use just one book or refer to multiple books?

it would seem to me that most of the time i find something one book has omitted in another book, vice versa.

Locrian

Hmm, my opinion on my textbooks has been pretty mixed so far:

Goldstein, Classical Mechanics: Awful. Firstly, the text is filled to the brim with errors. The second edition has a huge number of errors in it. I've talked to people - professors, no less! - who sent them lists of errors about the second edition only to see the errors appear in the third. The third edition copy I have is on it's 10th printing and is still full of them! I believe the newest printing might be a bit better, but there is just no excuse. I can count at least twice I had to take time after school to sit down with my prof on a subject I didn't understand, only to find that the book was hopelessly incorrect, and that was the source of my problem. The quality of the book is fair at best under perfect circumstances - given its mixed history, I'm angry it is still used.

Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics - I love Jackson. I don't think most students do, but everyone can agree it is encompassing, accurate and, while there are a couple of mistakes here and there, most of it is clean as a whistle. I've learned huge amounts from it, and appreciate the level of difficulty of the problems.

Kittel, Solid State - If Jackson is the encyclopedia of E&M, Kittel is the cliff notes of Solid State. It really isn't a bad text, but every topic feels skeletal. More importantly, the discussion in the book is minimal, and examples often lacking (at least Goldstein had lots of those). Even my prof has mixed feelings about it, but said it was the best introductory book out there. I have checked out four other SS books from the library, and so far I agree with him. That's worth something, I suppose. . .

Cohen-Tannoudji, QM - This would be a great text if only it weren't organized so oddly! It is broken into chapters and compliments, and often the compliments take up more space than the chapter itself. The exercises are buried in one of the compliments, and just getting around in the book can be a huge pain. The content itself though, I find very useful.

I guess those are the common books I've run into so far.

kant

The hardest thing for me to accept is the notion that mathematics is equivalent to reading hard classical text. Scientific, and mathematical Ideas should be express in the simpliest manner, because ultimately math, or physics is to it s core simply, but the devil is on the application side. People in the science should be taught to learn from main points and derive the unnecessary details. Too much reading distract the whole purpose of solving problems( which is the main point). If you are into reading hard text, then go be a historian, or english major.



Do not make me a bad guy. It is just a educated guess. On average, there are not many mexican or blacks in the math and engineering library.




I am sorry if i offend you.
i only list by the race i usually see.

kant

Like i said to the other guy. I do not belief the matheamtician and physicist are in the business of reading hard text. There is a common notion that the harder the text, the more complicated is the idea. It is simply not true. If anything ideas in math, and science are simply, but it is only in the application side of those ideas that is hard. Textbook should teach student to think about things from main point( first principle), and derive the unncessary( general equations) from sketch. Instead, the textbook are usually in the habit of giving the reader a million piece of little facts with no unifing principle. That is why the plus side to lecture over reading the text is see how mathematics "grow". What it really means is to see how stuff are derived from first principle.

TMFKAN64

Man, the pearls of wisdom just keep coming in this thread...

mathwonk

a reasonable thread topic would be "what are some good books?" a whining negative one is this one.

whetehr or not it resonates with other negative types is unrelated to whetehr it serves a purpose. this is not a chat room for losers.

kant

Your off point remark are not pearls of wisdom. At least i have a point, and i am asserting it.

kant

Do you own this forum? What did i do? I made a thread, and express an opinion. People reply, and i reply back. You either agree with my view, or you don t. I see alot stupid opinions in discussion forums, and even if i disagree with most, i don t cry about like you, because i have the common courtesy to let people say what they want. If you don t like it, then go away?

jostpuur

According to my conspiracy theory, top phycisists put bad mathematics, incorrect proofs, and confusing explanations to the books on purpose, in attempt to keep researchers of smaller universities sufficently weak, and to keep them from threatening the positions of top researchers.

(Note: I'm not necessarely serious on this.)

kant

It is not a conspiracy that math books are in general badly written. I don t think this is murder. I think most of the reply so far are utterly rediculous. I am not saying all textbooks are bad, but in general, they are. if you don t believe me, then go ask around in your university.

Sojourner01

Locrian, I'm interested in your opinion of Kittel since there's a (library) copy on my desk. I would have said that - to my eyes - the book is pretty downright detailed. There's a lot of maths in it that looks obscene, but perhaps that is because - as you noted - the discussion is limited. The problems are functional, but importantly - there are no answers! How are you supposed to know if you got them right?

A very (very) similar book is Solid State Physics by Hook and Hall. The preface is by Hook, who wrote the first edition many moons ago and felt his own pedagogical skills inadequate for the rewrite, so handed it over to Mr. Hall. The result is a very similar book to Kittel's in both layout and content - even mirroring many of the problems - but a little more reader-friendly - and with answers!

The final one is The Physics and Chemistry of Solids by Elliott, which appears somewhat more basic still, and contains a fair chunk of statistical mechanics as well as the crystallography, electron modelling and so on of the previous two. I haven't read this one thoroughly but it seems like a solid introductory text.

leon1127

If the one that you are using is bad. Get a better one. It would be a better to discuss what are the good/bad Maths/Phys books. Create a list to inform people what to get. Discussing WHY they are bad wouldn't help student to improve in any way I think. Your topic should be appropriate only for "money-seeking lower level author" who is controlled by "bloody sucking" publisher I have spent a lot of money on Maths books in order to build myself a strong foundation. I do agree what Mathwonk said. I really think his experience in Maths and Physics can support this statement.

PS: I earn that money by working my butt off. I do not have a sugar daddy.

hrc969

No one said that its equivalent. However SOMETIMES it is NECESSARY to read a hard text to learn what we want to learn.

But sometimes mathematical ideas are not simple. Sometimes they are complicated and really hard to get across.

I'm not really understanding what you are trying to say here. Can you explain it more clearly.

This just seems like its your opinion.

[QUOTE]People in the science should be taught to learn from main points and derive the unnecessary details. Who are you to say what unnecessary details are. One of my professors just commented(2 days ago) on one time that there was something that he was supposed to learn in grad school and was asked about it on his qual. He did not understand why he needed it (he thought it was unnecessary). It was only YEARS later that he saw it come up and understood that it was not unnecessary.
Instead of classifying things as unnecessary you should try to figure out why something that is done in class is necessary. For example, Gamelin introduces Riemann Surfaces very early on in his Complex Analysis book (did you think that was an unnecessary detail?) Some of my classmates did. But its not unnecessary for everyone. Sure some people were just trying to get a math degree with no intention on studying any pure math beyond the BS level. But for someone like me it was interesting and good to see it that early in my education.

Well I don't know about you but I cannot usually solve problems without reading first. Sometimes I have to read a lot before I can solve any problems.

Also I don't know if you've heard of the professor named Elman. I guess he's one of the more demanding professors (a bit more generous than Mess though and more sense of humor, etc). His philosophy is (and I think many of us would somewhat agree) that the purpose of doing problems is to learn mathematics.

In fact he gives take home midterms with very difficult problems with the sole purpose of making most of us "GO READ BOOKS AND LEARNING SOME MATHEMATICS". The point is they are hard problems, they can be found in books so we are supposed to go find books with those problems and read them and understand the material.

If you have a chance you should go talk to him he's usually in his office from 3pm -7pm.

Once some of my classmates were sort of complaining about me having around 160 books from the library while they had from 0 to around 30. One said something like "why would you need so many books", Elman's answer was simply "Oh, you NEED books".

If you want people to stop making statements such as the one about pearls of wisdom you have got to stop stupid statements. I have never had a professor who told me that reading books sucks or that there are too many that are bad. Maybe they think that there are some bad books, maybe they think that there are alot of bad books. What they focus on is telling us what books are good. I think this is why mathwonk (also a mathematics professor at a university) has suggested that a better thread would be to ask what some good books are. That way we could tell you that instead. You keep complaining and whining about books being hard or bad without any justification other than "some of my professors agree".

We were discussing a book and you just stopped. WHERE DID THE DISCUSSION ABOUT GAMELIN'S BOOK GO. You think that book sucks I disagree. If you want to prove your point please do so. Otherwise you should leave and stop wasting our time. I'm glad to help you and I hope I can convince you to stop what you are doing. I really suggest you go talk to Elman about the role of book in mathematics education (he's office is right outside the men's restroom in the 5th floor of the Math Sciences building.

I tried really hard not to make you a bad guy. I could have just assumed that you were guessing for this reason but I did not instead I asked you why you guessed. Its not my fault you are so naive.

No its not an educated guess. Its stupid to try to guess. Knowing nothing about who you are talking about except that he goes to UCLA doesn't mean you guess he's white or asian. You said one of my statements was naive but if you asked me your guessing my race was naive.

Can you even tell a person's race by looking at them? Actually even if you saw me you might not recognize me as mexican because according to a lot of people I look armenian.

Don't worry about it. I just wanted to know if this was the reason for your guesses (I thought it was). Since it is I just want to say to STOP being so stupid and naive. You can't guess a person's race by what school he goes to unless you know there is only one type of race there.

Again you probably wouln't recognize me if you saw me and probably not even see me since I go to the library very early and there is usually 0 other people there or at most 10 at that time.

Again if you want to know a person's race just ask "Oh, just curious, what's your race" or something along those lines. That would help to not make you look stupid.

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Now I would really like to continue the discussion about Gamelin's book. You want to say that books used in classes are bad this is the perfect opportunity for you to make your point.

Rather than saying that the style was unacceptable, say what you thought the style was and why you think its unacceptable. You should say what kind of style you prefer and maybe we can point you at a book with a style that suits you.