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Dover Publication Books?

Started by HemoGloben Oct 18, 2005 at 6:57 PM 5 replies 800+ views
Original Post
HemoGloben
HemoGloben
I'm looking for some good math books, and in browing around book stores, I've found a recurring set of books, namely by Dover Publications. Looking through them, they look like really good books, but the math is for the most part beyond what I know at the moment, so I can't say for certain if they're great books or not. Anyone have any opinions on them? If not, what other math specific lines of books could I/ should I look into?
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Christer Ericson
Christer Ericson
Quote:
Anyone have any opinions on them [Dover books]? If not, what other math specific lines of books could I/ should I look into?
The Dover book series contain a large number of classic books at a fantastically low price. The only real gotcha with these books is that they are reprints of old titles and therefore do not cover the latest developments on a given topic. However, unless you're an expert on the topic you probably won't find this to be a problem.

As to which ones you should look into, well that is highly dependent on what things you are hoping to learn or hoping to achieve afterward. If you give more info, I'm sure people can give you good book pointers.
Troll
Troll
I'm a fan of Dover books. As Christer pointed out, the books tend to be reprints of older titles. As such if you've never seen the material before, the books can be difficult to learn from. The writing style can be difficult to understand at times. There are generally no answers to the problems, so you really have no clue if you're doing it right. If you already know a little about the topic, a Dover book is a cheap & effective purchase.
HemoGloben
HemoGloben
I'm actually a senior at high school, trying to learn more advanced math. I know the books aren't meant for me(a lot of them are meant for juniors in college and such), but I really want to learn. I'm most afraid of not getting the terminology and stuff(though not so much, thanks to Wikipedia and mathworld.)

I wanted to pick up the book on Modern Algebra, but I ended up getting "Geometry: A comprehensive course". At the moment, it's slow going, only about 6 pages in or so. I keep getting stuck on small technical details, or the descriptions and definitions of things, but it isn't too bad.

I'm in AP Calculus BC at the moment. But I'm really just looking into all things math. I love math for math's sake, Pure or Applied, the problem is, I don't quite know where to start. So I figured I'd go through Geometry(I wa shorrible at it the first time around, so I needed to brush up on it anyway), then Algebra. Once those were done, I'd move into Number/Group/Set/Graph Theory and such.

Any tips?
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nilkn
nilkn
Honestly I just recommend you purchase college textbooks pertaining to whichever topic of math it is you wish to learn. Just because you're in high school doesn't by any means imply that a college-level text would be too difficult, especially if you're a self-motivated learner, such as you are.

Typically textbooks intended for college use come with a large library of exercises scattered throughout, which are great when you're teaching yourself because they help provide you with a good metric of how well you're doing with the material in terms of not just understanding it but actually being able to apply it.

This is how I have taught myself higher math (in addition with, of course, Wikipedia and MathWorld, both of which are excellent formal references for math topics).
Zipster
Zipster
Be wary of "theory" subjects. They sound simple, with catchy little names like "Set Theory" and "Graph Theory", but I can tell you from experience that it can quickly become intense. It's a new way of thinking about concepts and ideas you thought you already knew, all from a generalized theoretical point of view. While it can be extremely fascinating to understand what's going on behind math you do everyday, it's a very steep learning curve since it's simply not what you're used to. I'd suggest you save these gems until later in your math education. But that's just me.

As for buying college textbooks, they're a mixed bag. On the one hand, the writing tends to be targeted toward students and people learning the subject, so it's quite accessible. On the other hand, I've found that some textbooks can leave out a lot of detail, since they expect a professor to be supplementing the material. Just check out the book before you buy it and see if it's in-depth enough for you to learn from by yourself.
embpos
embpos
I never really got past "Fundamentals of Astrodynamics" by Bate, Mueller and White after reaching a dubious derivation of the work-energy equations.

Still to this day I don't know how you can assume that r dot r' (where r' is the time derivative of r) is simply the product of their magnitudes.

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