# Great books for the self taught?

1. Mar 22, 2007

### Bingo

I’m an ME major and like studying certain math topics outside my curriculum in my spare time. I’m having a hard time deciding what books to get and I’m guessing that a good start would be finding a good book on writing proofs. Ive bought one but there are no solutions for the exercises. This wouldn’t be a problem if I had a teacher to get feedback from but since this is self taught, I need some feedback. I have looked around on the forums and have not found opinions on books covering this while other topics there are so many recommendations that its difficult to decide since some cost so much \$. I’m also interested in finding good books on PDE’s, analysis, complex analysis, and any other great book any of you would recommend :). Ive had the typical college courses up to and including ODEs. Thanks for any replies.

2. Mar 22, 2007

### JasonRox

I learned how to write proofs while reading an "easier" kind of Topology textbook. A lot of people are intimidated and never take Topology, but there really is nothing to fear. You're dealing with sets basically. It will help with Analysis as well.

Anyways, they have many simple proof problems anyone can solve. It helped me build the logic and such required to write a proof. It's not all about deducing, but knowing what's concrete and such.

Also, Analysis has a lot of proofs too, but I'm not aware of any having solutions at the back of the book though. So, I don't know what to say there.

3. Mar 22, 2007

### morphism

Springer have a series of accessible undergrad books (Springer Undergraduate Mathematics Series, or SUMS) with answers to all the exercises. My recommendation is to see if your school's library has copies on hand, or look for used ones. Although new copies aren't as expensive as most textbooks.

In fact, http://www.springer.com/west/home/math/algebra?SGWID=4-10043-580-173622659-DISPLAY_TYPE=DISPLAY_TYPE_TITLES&RESULTS_PER_PAGE=10&resultStart=0 [Broken] is the list of all books in that series.

Last edited by a moderator: May 2, 2017
4. Mar 22, 2007

### JasonRox

I have a textbook from them and have seen others and don't have solutions whatsoever.

Different version maybe?

Last edited by a moderator: May 2, 2017
5. Mar 22, 2007

### JasonRox

I just checked again, and some do have solutions.