Other Should I Become a Mathematician?

[reenmachine]

reenmachine - I tried to self-teach but I find it very difficult to learn math randomly , you always get stuck on...

Well what things have you been trying to learn, or maybe what textbook or math puzzle book are you attempting?

There are a lot of people who hit the getting stuck roadblock, and it's quite natural, but with almost anything in math and physics, with a bit more patience and simply spending more time on something, and going back regularly, even if 10-30 min a week, you can snap out of it.

Sometimes it takes weeks, sometimes years but if your interest is there, you'll self-study one day. Just knowing a little piece well, and being interested enough to come back to the book for 30 minutes at a time, and then browsing again, every week for another 30 minutes, you can kickstart the habit

a. where you'll get a better grasp of ideas and concepts from just random browsing and getting the 'gist of things' far more than you might realize

b. actually saying, maybe i'll start on this book properly, at the beginning and go for being slow and complete, but trying extra hard to being consistent with your reading or pondering of examples, and realizing that you don't need to get far. Be patient, spend more time with things.A lot of hurdles with self-studying math can just be something so simple as not realizing that you needed to spend three times as long reading that article/chapter fragment. that 14 minutes didnt work, but 71 minutes unlocked some secrets...

im still kicking myself for not reading sherman stein's calculus book in the house, when i was still struggling with algebra. I got frustrated with the book that some chapters were crystal clear and a few just seemed 'unclear' to me. I gave up.

Also i didnt realize how important it was to just try out what the author *really* intended.

If he wrote 36 pages for chapter one, why not read *all* 36 pages?

Why not read it slowly enough to give the author a 'decent' chance?

Maybe his examples are extremely extremely useful, figure those out *deeply*

Hey, why did the author plop 64 questions at the end? Gee that's a lot! Wait a minute, what happens if i did all 64 of them?

That's the sort of thing that broke things for me with self-study.

Don't fall into the trap that the school system teaches you, the bad habit that it always needs to be a race. Make one chapter of that textbook, your life. Forget about the whole book. Drop the idea that you need to rush through the book and skim through 70% of it, sure a lot of teachers do that to cram things into 12 weeks or 15 weeks ,but why should you?

Make sure you got math books that are slightly easy to read, and some that actually do challenge you too. One day some subjects will be eye-opening if you can read one math book, and then slowly, use 2 more textbooks to read together...

So you're seeing some ideas open up in three different ways, and see how each explanation is unique...

What's murky in one book, can be clearer in another book.

but real accomplishment is when you can read all three chapters in all three books, and they all start to help each other, rather than feel like three different universes, all frustratingly different and confusing.If you are fascinated with something, don't let friends or teachers get you down. You might be interested in something, but who says that you got to be an expert from day one with it?And who says that self-study isn't so hot when you do it randomly...

If you got a book, you start at the beginning. There's nothing random at all about taking an extremely small sliver of it and trying to learn it well. Take small bites, take a lot time to chew, eat regularly...

I wrote a super long answer but it got erased as soon as I clicked on send. :(

Thanks for answering me btw , lot of good advices in your post.

I'll make a longer one later but for the moment:

I currently have no math book because I'm scared of getting a book I won't understand due to lack of math background.What I do in the meantime to keep my brain from getting rusty is doing some math puzzles I find on the internet here and there.Sometimes I can't solve them and this is where I try to learn new concepts to help me solve these problems , but organizing what I need to learn and where to learn it is very hard.This is why I might just be better off going back to school.

I destroyed my high school math programs back in the days with a 98.5% average out of about 36 exams.Unfortunately calculus (or at least Calcul Infinitésimal in french , which I think is calculus) wasn't part of it.This is my next target , any suggestions to self-teach calculus?

One thing about my high school math years is that while I scored very high , I don't feel like the program was in my favor because it was too easy for the other students to score somewhat high (like 85-90%).To make an analogy a lot of students knew a single path to get to the answer while I knew the entire map.I was known as a very creative math student.I always tried to understand the concepts in depth , not just mesmorizing the formulas and technics.If they would have put two trickier/tougher questions at the end of every exam which would count for at least 10% the standard would have been fairer to people who make the effort to understand the entire map instead of mesmorizing a single path , a path that ideally wouldn't be enough to answer those two hypothetical trickier/tougher problems I'm talking about.

One thing I'm scared of right now is if I go back to undergraduate they'll force me to at least a year of ''general studies'' where math isn't the only focus.This would be a major waste of time for someone my age trying to contribute to math in the long run.I don't know all the details yet of what is expected of me before entering a math program but I have a meeting with a math department person next month and we shall see.If I have to take some french classes or social sciences classes for a year it'll be very frustrating in my situation.

Another thing about self-teaching , 3 years ago I didn't speak a word of english , I learned it by myself discussing on message boards so I've seen the possible success self-teaching can bring.

Sorry for the short reply , can't believe my long one got deleted :X

 

[zapz]

hey guys just a quick timeline type question. If I want to do a phd in math, when should i play to take the general gre and the subject gre? i figure i should take the subject test twice, or at least have the time to be able to. so any idea why i take try to take the tests?

 

[reenmachine]

Not sure if it's the right place to ask , but I will probably study in Montreal and I would prefer to do it in french.

What is the reputation of the Université de Montréal in math?

I know McGill has a good reputation but I rarely hear about UdeM and I was wondering.

 

[andrewkg]

Hello I saw it in an earlier post o. Here, but does anyone know if the humongous book of calculus problems is a good book to start calculus with. Or does anyone have any other good texts. Also if possible not a 1200 page book.

 

[mathwonk]

Univ de Montreal has Andrew Granville, and outstanding number theorist. I don't know the other faculty but if Andrew went there it should be good.

 

[reenmachine]

Univ de Montreal has Andrew Granville, and outstanding number theorist. I don't know the other faculty but if Andrew went there it should be good.

thanks!

 

[reenmachine]

I edited this post as I don't think it was the right place to discuss such a subject.

I still have a dumb question for mathematicians , is your ph.d thesis likely to be good original work? I mean will the work on your ph.d be more or less at the same mathematical level as your future researches?

 

[poorasian]

Anyone have stories of being successful with an undergrad GPA of around 3.3? I got off to a really bad start, started making some progress, and fell back down again this quarter.

 

[mathwonk]

I hope you know I am not to blame for the new lame name for this thread.

 

[mathwonk]

answer to legitimate question: some phd theses are outstanding, ( e.g. that if Henri Lebesgue), but most are not. as Robin Hartshorne put it: "the PhD thesis should be your first scholarly work, not your last".and as to GPA, it matters only if it truly represents your potential. But 3.3 is not so low sounding, especially if the standards were high at your school. It probably exceeds mine, but I don't know as I never calculated it. I.e. who cares?

 

[reenmachine]

thanks

I have another dumb question (and I understand the answer is likely to vary quite a bit depending which mathematician we're talking about) , but how long does it take to produce a ''work''? Do you publish or make public on the net any single advance you do on your work or do you wait for your work to be completed before sharing? How many work is an average mathematician likely to produce in a decade for example? (approximative number)

 

[mathwonk]

Better work takes longer of course, but unfortunately the frequency of publications is often influenced greatly by the deadline for renewing your grant or for promotion. I.e. people are forced to publish works in time for those events to occur. Since most grants are for 3 years or less, it is very hard, if not impossible to work on a project taking longer than that, except for very well established or secure people.

In some departments it is expected to publish at least one paper a year, and in some areas many more than that is usual.

My first project took about 5 years, but i was young and naive and even so was having to fend off people telling me that I was not publishing fast enough. Everyone I know who has done a big 5 year project has had the same problems.

Ideally one wants to complete some significant piece of work before publishing it, but there may be a race with someone else working on a similar project to be first. If one waits too long priority may be lost. Ideally one does not care about this and just tries to do the best science possible, but the support for pure science is not so great. A good journal will often reject a paper that has only partial results on a given problem, even decent partial results.

Sometimes the people receiving the most recognition in the form of promotions, grants, etc, are publishing large numbers of minor works. There are department chairmen who evaluate their personnel merely by counting the number of papers published. But this is perhaps within a restricted setting. Worldwide, top recognition usually follows the best work.

One should try not to be guided too much by these mundane considerations, insofar as one can avoid it, but you have to pay your bills, in order to be able to work.

 

[dkotschessaa]

I hope you know I am not to blame for the new lame name for this thread. The brilliantly witty tag "Who wants to be a mathematician?" has been changed without my consultation. Has tolerance of a sense of humor departed this realm?

I was wondering about that. Seemed to come with the forum upgrade.

 

[reenmachine]

Better work takes longer of course, but unfortunately the frequency of publications is often influenced greatly by the deadline for renewing your grant or for promotion. I.e. people are forced to publish works in time for those events to occur. Since most grants are for 3 years or less, it is very hard, if not impossible to work on a project taking longer than that, except for very well established or secure people.

In some departments it is expected to publish at least one paper a year, and in some areas many more than that is usual.

My first project took about 5 years, but i was young and naive and even so was having to fend off people telling me that I was not publishing fast enough. Everyone I know who has done a big 5 year project has had the same problems.

Ideally one wants to complete some significant piece of work before publishing it, but there may be a race with someone else working on a similar project to be first. If on waits too long priority may be lost. Ideally one does not care about this and just tries to do the best science possible, but the support for pure science is not so great. A good journal will often reject a paper that has only partial results on a given problem, even decent partial results.

Sometimes the people receiving the most recognition in the form of promotions, grants, etc, are publishing large numbers of minor works. There are department chairmen who evaluate their personnel merely by counting the number of papers published. But this is perhaps within a restricted setting. Worldwide, top recognition usually follows the best work.One should try not to be guided too much by these mundane considerations, insofar as one can avoid it, but you have to pay your bills, in order to be able to work.

I see , this is where the ''publish or perish'' expression comes from.

Suppose you are working on something very hard , something that will probably require 5+ years to complete or at least advanced to a significant degree , do you still have the time to work a something more trivial that you can publish just in order to satisfy people that are pressuring you to publish?Mostly uninteresting work but just good enough to publish it.

About publishing , suppose you're in some decent math department , how do the publishing process works exactly? Does being published = who you know/who knows you or is it guaranteed you are going to get published if you have a job in a math department? If your work doesn't get published where is your work going?

In the same vein , suppose you pretend to have proven a theorem but you aren't a big name and your proof ends up unpublished or at least people aren't taking the time to review it , if your proof was indeed correct , does that mean somebody could actually re-prove it in 10 years , get more attention and take all the credit despite the fact you proved it first?

sorry for these dumb questions I'm just trying to built a clearer picture on the whole process and I have to ask the dumb questions before asking better questions in the future :)

thansk for taking the time

cheers

 

[mathwonk]

it is smart to have several smaller works to publish while working on a bigger one, but it takes a bit of savvy to manage that.

If you have done something significant it will get published, but unimportant work will not be published just because you have a job in a math dept.

your correct and significant work will not be denied recognition just because you are unknown. it will be reviewed with respect.

horror stories like galois' work being lost by cauchy are extremely rare.

 

[epenguin]

Go slumming!

Suppose you are working on something very hard , something that will probably require 5+ years to complete or at least advanced to a significant degree , do you still have the time to work a something more trivial that you can publish just in order to satisfy people that are pressuring you to publish?Mostly uninteresting work but just good enough to publish it.

About publishing , suppose you're in some decent math department , how do the publishing process works exactly? Does being published = who you know/who knows you or is it guaranteed you are going to get published if you have a job in a math department? If your work doesn't get published where is your work going?

it is smart to have several smaller works to publish while working on a bigger one, but it takes a bit of savvy to manage that.

If I may make a modest suggestion for mathematicians with this in mind, if you keep wide interests and contacts from the start you might see applications for your competences in other sciences, or if they know you they know someone to come to or recommend for their problems, which may even seem trivial to you. (For example Hardy must be far more widely known for the Hardy-Weinberg theorem in genetics that biology students struggle to do excercises in, and which is nothing but the binomial theorem for n=2 (!) , than he is for anything else.) But you have to understand something of their sciences as they frame it or there are fantastic misunderstandings. Beyond the well-worn higher physics-maths connection problems are thrown up in medicine, biology, Earth sciences, materials sciences,... for a sideline and the odd publication or so for you.

Or possibly a Nobel Prize - by accident I came across; "John Pople...Cambridge University and was awarded his doctorate degree in mathematics in 1951. ... Pople considered himself more of a mathematician than a chemist, but theoretical chemists consider him one of the most important of their number..."

 

[dkotschessaa]

I'm going to be taking Elementary Abstract Algebra in the Summer (6 week course) despite swearing I'd never take a summer math course again. But if I don't, it will put a lot of other courses on hold (and it's already taking me too long to get through my degree.)

We use this book: Modern Algebra: An Introduction by John R. Durbin

I'd like to pre-study for this class, which thankfully is in the *second* summer session and gives me a bit of time to prepare. Two approaches - I cold get the book itself and try to get a head start - or I could find another smaller book and perhaps have it completed.

I started to work with a professor on this book:
Abel's Theorem in Problems and Solutions: Based on the lectures of Professor V.I. Arnold by V.B. Alekseev

In an informal independent study last summer, but we got side tracked, and I didn't quite have enough background for it. (Despite the introduction saying it should be readable by high school students - they meant *Russian* high school students. It seems to touch on a lot of the same material as Elem Abstract Algebra.

Or is there another book that might give me a good crash course? Or should I just get the textbook itself?

The reason I ask is that - I've found that "Studying ahead" for a class in a textbook is nice - but only works as far as you've gotten. Once you get to where you've studies ahead, you can get just as behind again as anyone. Advice?

 

[mathwonk]

As to how many publications is normal, look at some mathematicians' vitas, available on their web pages.

Here is the publication list for the first 10 years of an absolute star, Lenny Ng. He has about 2 a year for the first 10 years. And bear in mind he spent most of that time as a fellow at research institutes such as MSRTI, IAS, and AIM. And he is brilliant, so is much more productive than average.

http://www.math.duke.edu/~ng/math/professional/pub.pdf

I myself, in 33 years, published 33 papers (of varying significance), gave about 60 invited talks and courses, mostly conference and seminar talks, and taught some 150 college courses, (about 40 different titles).

 

[reenmachine]

thanks a lot again for the quick , precise and good quality answers!

Being isolated from the mathematical world for the moment , this forum is a gold mine for me.If I one day become a mathematician in many years , I promise to contribute to it to give back.

 

[mathwonk]

here is my summary vita.

 

[reenmachine]

here is my summary vita.

very impressive ! Despite finishing your ph.d in your 30s , you had a long and productive career.And you're still doing math today so it's not over!

It is an inspiration for guys like me who would finish their ph.d around the same age if they go for it (mid to late-30s).

 

[dkotschessaa]

Any thoughts on my above post? Don't mean to be a bother, and I know you are answering a lot of people's questions. (Anyone feel free to contribute as well).

 

[Sankaku]

Or is there another book that might give me a good crash course? Or should I just get the textbook itself?

I would suggest asking your question in the textbook forum. This thread has become too big and unfocused for most people to want to keep reading it.

 

[mathwonk]

absolutely! hear hear! what else could possibly be learned here? popularity is its own curse. If we let this thread go to a million views it may never die!

But on the general principle that it is better to actually answer a question than to make smart alecky remarks, I recommend the OP go to my web page where there are several free algebra books posted for download.

http://www.math.uga.edu/~roy/

by all means read as much as possible. you can only do so much but whatever you do helps.

 

[dkotschessaa]

absolutely! hear hear! what else could possibly be learned here? popularity is its own curse. If we let this thread go to a million views it may never die!

hehe. Thanks mathwonk. As far as I'm concerned, this thread is 90% of PF. I actually don't have much luck when posting to other subforums here anyway.

But on the general principle that it is better to actually answer a question than to make smart alecky remarks, I recommend the OP go to my web page where there are several free algebra books posted for download.

http://www.math.uga.edu/~roy/

by all means read as much as possible. you can only do so much but whatever you do helps.

Thanks!

Dave K

 

[RJinkies]

AndrewKG: Hello I saw it in an earlier post o. Here, but does anyone know if the humongous book of calculus problems is a good book to start calculus with. Or does anyone have any other good texts. Also if possible not a 1200 page book.

Well, I'd say it's in the top 50 for an approachable book.
It is still 500-600

I'll summarize it this way:


The Humongous Book of Calculus Problems: For People Who Don't Speak Math - W. Michael Kelley - Alpha 2007 - 576 pages

[W. Michael Kelley is a former award-winning calculus teacher and author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Calculus, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Precalculus, and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Algebra. He is also the founder and editor of calculus-help.com, which helps thousands of students conquer their math anxiety every month.]
[why aren't more books like this one?]
[Back to the Basics]

[I bought the book for my daugther. I went through it. It was clear and simple to review. I gave it to my daugther (she is taking Calculus in High School). She went over a few chapters; then she shared her thoughts with the teacher. Her final evaluation "This book makes Calculus look so simple. I love it [the book] Mom."]
[I have always wanted to be a mathematician, and have decided to do it. I need to learn Calculus well (Calc I-III), so that I can go on for a masters in math program. This book covers Calc I and II. Of course before you open to page 1, you must know algebra and trig well. So take a few weeks to do that. Then, you should get this authors Idiots Guide to Calc, and go thru it. If you are good with your alg and trig, you can get thru that book. Then, the next step is this "Humongous" Book. I am now half way through it. I've taken it slow so that I can process everything. I feel pretty good about it, but now I am going back through the first half all over to solidify. Then its on to the second half over the winter, and by Spring I will have a good foundation in Calc I and II, and be ready to move on to III. Calc in and of itself is not hard - its the algebra and trig you have to know well. This brings me to my final point - Michael Kelley does a great job of stripping away the gobbledygook and delivering you the nuts and bolts of calculus ON PAR with the "hardcore texts". There are many of those "hardcore" books, and they just don't teach well. What this author has done is to teach you how to solve the problems as well as the underlying logic. Believe me, this book is great. If you see it, open it up and read the introduction - if you buy it and work it, you will be saying its a home run too.]

[This book covers what you need before actually delving into the arena of calculus. This book assumes that you have at least a rusty knowledge of algebra and trigonometry.]

[By far the most entertaining and comprehensive coverage of calculus 1 and 2 I have ever seen. Very clear presentation of material that makes the entire topic of calculus much less intimidating.Exquisitely written making it ideal for either self study or quick review.]

[This book really deserves all the praise it receives. Go through this, then get a supplemental text such as Schaum's to work more problems.]

[liked by Cargal]


----

Now calculus can be something where one book, might be your style, and not someone elses.

a few of the books worth peeking at:


How to Ace Calculus/How to Ace the Rest of Calculus - Adams
Schaum's Outlines
Silvanus P. Thompson - Calculus Made Easy - 1914
JE Thompson - Calculus for the common man - 1931
Engineering Mathematics - Stroud and Booth - Programmed Instruction Series [dozen books in the series]
Calculus Without Limits - Sparks
Calculus - Gootman
Sherman Stein - Calculus and Analytic Geometry 1973
[1968 first edition was called Calculus in the First Three Dimensions]
Kleppner - Quick Calculus [famous for his physics book on Intermediate Mechanics similar to Symon's book]
Essential Calculus with Applications - Richard A. Silverman - Dover 1989 - 304 pages [dense - no trig]
Morris Kline - Calculus [liked by some, disliked by some]
The Calculus Lifesaver - Banner
Calculus: The Elements - Michael Comenetz
The calculus: A college course guide - William Leonard Schaaf [Very easy read; very accessible] - early 60s
What Is Calculus About? (New Mathematical Library) - W. W. Sawyer
The Humongous Book of Calculus Problems - Kelley
The Calculus - Louis Leithhold [ i think it's in the 7th edition now called TC7]
Prof. E McSquared's Calculus Primer: Expanded Intergalactic Version - Howard Swann and Johnson
A First Course in Calculus - Serge Lang - 1964
Understanding Calculus - H. S. Bear
Calculus and Pizza: A Cookbook for the Hungry Mind - Clifford A. Pickover - Wiley 2003 - 208 pages
[useful book for pushing at 15 year olds - but only does 5% of what Calculus Made Simple teaches]



[similar stuff with a lot more depth, was discussed between reenmachine and I a few weeks ago, and that slightly messy thing is up on my blog here]


Anyways, it's hoped that people keep asking about books, and there's a fast and furious exchange of opinions about books, especially about introductory math books.

It's much more than a book list, but a living breathing exchange of opinions, where the people who don't know calculus or a lot of algebra should interact with the higher ups as much as possible!


if i was building a library for calculus I'd probably run out and get:
Sylvanius Thompson - JE Thompson - Kleppner - Sawyer - Stein
Gootman - Kelley - Calculus/Schaums - Advanced Calculus/Schaums - REA Problem Solver Calculus
and Spivak [for one deep book to compare and browse to the easier books]

and any ton of crappy old 20s 30s 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s math texts for a dollar in a used book store - good or bad, stale or interesting, you just might find one could be an okay reference, and if you think it's a stinker, at least you can compare your good books with it! At least if a book is stale or difficult or mind-numbing, there are always cool examples rarely seen or wacky problems. [some crappy math books for reading, may have interesting problems]

 

[Sankaku]

But on the general principle that it is better to actually answer a question than to make smart alecky remarks, I recommend the OP go to my web page where there are several free algebra books posted for download.

I am sorry you saw it as a "smart alecky remark." It was intended as useful advice. Asking for textbook information in a textbook forum seems like a logical step, no?

 

[RJinkies]

mathwonk: absolutely! hear hear! what else could possibly be learned here? popularity is its own curse. If we let this thread go to a million views it may never die!

dkotschessaa: hehe. Thanks mathwonk. As far as I'm concerned, this thread is 90% of PF. I actually don't have much luck when posting to other subforums here anyway.

Sankaku: I am sorry you saw it as a "smart alecky remark." It was intended as useful advice. Asking for textbook information in a textbook forum seems like a logical step, no?Well, i shuddered with the 150 pages? 2-3 years ago when this 'do you want to be a mathematician' thread was already underway for a while, but i decided to slog through it for useful pieces.

I wondered if the thread wouldn't be best condensed into a special page or something [outside of a forum] , or pared down so it would be more readable then... but it was a pretty vibrant place.

I do have worries that changing the name of the thread might get long term occasional users or people searching for this place again, will get lost in the name shuffle.

I'm also of mixed opinion if we're going to break up the thread into smaller ones, since a lot of 'subforums' and branches do die like a dog on here, or end up closed up and barren.

[sometimes people come back after months or years and post amazing stuff, sometimes you seem threads here and elsewhere closed down prematurely, or sometimes the subject goes on for years in spurts, who knows when it ends...]

Textbook stuff is often randomly splashed on here, and i wondered if a textbook set of subforums would work, often there's a lot of threads that just don't get the critical mass to get good feedback.

---

The question if one

'how to be a mathematician' might be more eyecatching, and well a lot of textbook questions are asked with the how/should i be's... and it could be intense surgery. I think the thread is mathwonk's baby, and if things do 'grow' elsewhere, we should be well aware of telling others about the 'other threads'.

There's lots of places of PF where i didnt know the discussions were, and especially true for newbies.

people come here mostly from luck, and not study of guessing endless threads on here, searching and searching...
I fully agree with you dkotschessaa, 90% of what i find has been here, the other 10% has been pure luck [often i navigate better through google than brute force searching for similar threads on diff subjects here]

 

[dkotschessaa]

I am sorry you saw it as a "smart alecky remark." It was intended as useful advice. Asking for textbook information in a textbook forum seems like a logical step, no?

It would if I had asked about textbooks. I asked about supplemental/additional reading material and general strategy.

I think the point though is to trust that those of us who post regularly to this thread know what they are doing. Most of my new threads disappear into the ether anyway.

-Dave K

 

[RJinkies]

dkotschessaa: It would if I had asked about textbooks. I asked about supplemental/additional reading material and general strategy. I think the point though is to trust that those of us who post regularly to this thread know what they are doing. Most of my new threads disappear into the ether anyway.I fully support that statement dkotschessaa.I'm worried about people walking away from the 'who wants to be a mathematician' thread for those very reasons.If people *want* to be a mathematician, the issues about courses or books, just oddly seem to arise believe it or not. Also there is the tension of beginners posting on here, as well as those with many degrees, and to strike a happy medium can be difficult sometimesI think we need to make this place as welcoming as possible for the high school student, the teens and adults with a little math phobia, as well the A student undergrad and the help me I'm failing undergrad, as well as the 'big guns'.Sankaku: I would suggest asking your question in the textbook forum. This thread has become too big and unfocused for most people to want to keep reading it.

I thought this thread was a huge bloated many headed-hydra YEARS ago, when i was way too intimidated to post. I seriously felt it should have been broken up into many threads or streamlined, but i thought that all the damn threads on here are chaotic, and who is to argue with mathwonk's success with a vibrant friendly forum?

The length frustrated me like 4 years ago, and it's like 40% bigger now.

But i came here because of mathwonk's book reviews and the people asking him a zillion questions on books and many many other things.

----

I'm not sure what the best suggestions are, but i enjoy most of dkotchessaa's postings, and I'm upset that he's one of many people seeing his thread's disappear.

I've gotten a lot of praise in private with my postings on books here, and in the past month, some friendly suggestions on the other side of things, yet I'm not sure that my postings are making people happy.

I'm usually my own worst critic for the length, or cut and paste and sloppiness and i really don't like being the center of attention.

But i do think that we are posting on here for a healthy and vibrant discussion of mathematics, and this will deal with math books - from recreational, pop-science, to course texts.I've had discussions with others and friends in email what the best solutions could be, should we create book threads, should we just post like we always did before, or should we put stuff up on blogs.

I've had one helpful suggestion that i could create a blog, though i did need help from two people to get that going smoothly, but I'm wondering if that's the best course of action...Micromass isn't posting about books, as much but he's doing an excellent blog list of books.

The reason i post books on here are for actually getting a discussion going on about some of the titles, and this is a completely different purpose than a blog.

I've considered that i don't like some of the lengthy reviews of some books, but if they were just a simple cut and paste, i would just throw six books up and six urls for people to read it themselves.

But my notes are often from dozens of sources, and not always from one source like amazon, so I'm not sure of the best solution. Yet i get encouraging posts in private to keep adding details about certain textbooks, though I'm getting more hesitant, from my own judgement months ago, as well as other factors.

I've had thoughts about taking all the book review talk private, but some don't want me to do that.----I'm all for the opinion that we need to discuss the books here, and it's crucial to the popularity of the thread. I've seen the awesome results of mathwonk watching this thread on here for half a decade, and i got pushed into posting on here, though I'm not always comfortable doing so.

I want to talk about the books, calculus and pizza, or the New Mathematical Library books, or math puzzle books, and other stuff... but I'm wondering if you're right dave, sometimes the new threads fizzle or run into problems, and this is still the best forum for 'most math talk'

I'm pondering if we need to create threads for recreational math books, first year calc books, differential equation books, and if we need 'webpages' with booklists as well in the future.I think the more beginners that come here, the better, and sometimes it can get tiresome if you see the same question 37 times about Stewart's calculus text, or rudin is too hard, or I'm in high school etc etc , but i think tossing thoughtful answers is the key to the success of the thread, and you're doing all the right things dkotchessa.

But yeah, I'm hoping there's a First Year calculus book talk and concepts form, and an Abstract Algebra one, and a Number Theory book and concepts of number theory forum. Maybe soon.

If you need to walk into 'should i become a mathematician thread' you're going to need to know a lot more than a book list from someone, but you need to know why a book is important and what it feels like. If you know of url for a math site and amazon, that's fine too, but i think it's better to discuss it here, with the people curious enough to be here for advice, rather than sending them off on a url goose chase too. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to make some book threads as nontechnical as possible, if and when i start up some threads.

But yeah, i been thinking about how huge this forum has been for half a decade. Like Dr. Strangelove, i learned to stop worrying about the size of the thread and love it...