Recent content by brainy kevin

All right, after a violent coup overthrowing the current establishment you've been appointed supreme overlord and dictator-for-life of your school district. What do you do? You have as much money is as reasonable. (Enough to hire teachers with professional experience in their fields, but not...

Seeing as how no one else has, I'm going to put in the obligatory vote for Spivak's Calculus. It's really more of an analysis book, but it's incredible. The problems are extremely hard, however, so it would really be a challenge, but if you're up to it, go for it.

I'd go for Shilov, but it's much more terse than the alternatives. Friedberg's is the "friendliest", but Shilov has the most material and has the "friendliest" price. Axler is very good as well.

No problem. Glad to help.

There's an easier way, as a matter of fact. Let a=23.5888... (I'm using ellipses to represent repeating decimals.) Then 10a=235.888... and 100a=2358.888... Subtraction will get rid of our repeating decimal. Therefore, 90a=2123 a=2123/90. 23.5888...=2123/90 I got this from Numbers...

Trigonometry, Gelfand. I own it, and am in fact looking at it right now. I can guarantee it's a good one. It has creative problems, and many proofs. I highly recommend it.

It's excellent that you want to learn the material and not just the tricks, but I don't believe all of high school mathematics can be in one book, even by excellent authors like Lang. These are some brilliant books that really teach you the material. Feel free to pick and choose the ones that...

Man, I'm so glad we don't have a socialist health care system like France, where they pay for medical school for doctors, have costs of less than half of ours, is more effective, and the government provides cheap malpractice insurance for doctors. I know I would never want to become a doctor if...

Sorry to have two threads up at the top of the Science Book Discussion forum, but I couldn't find a thread for this. I'm interested in learning some mathematical logic. Here are the books I'm considering, please tell me what you think of them or suggest better alternatives. Mathematical Logic...

Thanks for the suggestion, but I was already aware of the fact that book existed. I appreciate it though. That reminds me, I've read Flatland, so nobody needs to recommend that. Edit: Is the series "History of Philosophy" by Copleston good?

Mathematical "Culture" Books I've been reading about math lately, and I'd be interested in learning a little bit more of the "human" side of mathematics. Could you please recommend some books on these topics? I don't mind more than one book per topic, or a book that would cover multiple topics...

I disagree with you. The fundamental difference between soccer, violin, and math, is that math has no relation to reality. There is no such thing as "technique" per se in math. The only thing that counts in "true" math is the quality of your ideas. Rote memorization of math facts is more...

I think you misunderstood my question. I'm asking why it looks like it's saying that the absolute value of x minus three is less than the absolute value of x minus three, which is a clear contradiction. I understand the theory behind limits very well, it's the part where you use the minimum...

I'm not really sure if this would go in homework or the calculus and analysis forums, so if I picked the wrong one please correct me. My calculus book has an example worked out that confused me, but you have to use the example to do the problems, which is why I put it here. (Note: Since I...

Shilov, absolutely seconded. Even if you don't like it, it's only ten bucks or so, what's the big deal? Here's mathwonk's review of it: I am choosing this book for my course on advanced linear algebra. This means nowadays a beginning course that covers all the bases, but that includes also some...