Literate Scientist

The CRC Encyclopedia of Mathematics, Third Edition - 3 Volume Set

I spotted this book on Amazon US and was thrilled to have the new edition in 3 volumes for easy handling when reading. I also have the previous edition that is even featured on my own book cover (the picture of my previous library book arrangement, the book is highlighted in white rectangle in the lower right corner):

This is a unique volume that sits between The Princeton Companion to Mathematics (that I’m also reading now) and Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mathematics: The Mathematical Society of Japan (that I also own). In fact after reading 3 volumes from cover to cover I can start with 2 volumes of EDM. There is also Springer Encyclopaedia of Mathematics in 11 volumes with various additional supplement volumes that I plan to own as well and it looks to me on the same level as EDM.

After searching for the best price I ordered a copy from Amazon DE and after my purchase in just a few days the price was up by 50%! I can only explain this that more people tried to purchase after I used twitter to announce this encyclopedia (there were 5 copies available on Amazon DE and in just 2 days only 1 left) or there was a mistake in price.

3 volumes arrived and I immediately started reading them, a few pages from each volume every day using mod 3 reading technique, for example, Wed - Vol I, Thu - Vol II, Fri - Vol III, Mon - Vol I, an so on. I prefer paper books for bulk reading instead of electronic version (in this case corresponding website) although if I’m interested in a specific article or a keyword I go to Wolfram MathWorld website to get the latest update and citations. These paperback volumes are just for day-to-day scheduled reading to get ideas and general mathematical education. This is why I don’t need an Index. For example, just after reading the first pages I got the idea of cubic (qubic) memory representation.

I usually put reviews on Amazon after I finish a book from cover to cover but in this case the review would be waiting for at least a year so I write it now based on my first impressions. After some time I plan to update it.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

These two volumes I bought a few years ago, started reading the first chapter and then other books got reading priority, for example, Rosen’s “Life Itself”. A few weeks ago I picked up the first volume again and started reading from the beginning. I’m was really amazed how I understand it better after reading Rosen’s books. These volumes are highly recommended to learn about models of reality and mathematical modeling itself. The first chapter that discusses the relationship of models to observation is awesome. The book requires an undergraduate engineering level of mathematics: linear algebra, calculus and a bit of mathematical analysis. You will also learn about catastrophe-theoretic models, chaos, cellular automata, geometry of human affairs, patterns, fractals, and many other things. There is even a discussion about controversies in catastrophe theory involving Rene Thom. I think the first volume of this book set is a prerequisite reading before starting with classic Structural Stability And Morphogenesis.

Reality Rules, 2 Volume Set

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

OpenTask plans to publish the extended and edited version of this blog as a book:

Literate Scientists and Their Books: An Independent Guide to Understanding Reality (ISBN: 978-1906717520)

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

This is one of the first books I bought more than 5 years ago when I started reading math and physics books after more than 10 year break… I wanted to refresh my math knowledge and especially to learn discrete math that I mostly missed during my Chemistry education. I stumbled upon this book in a bookshop and liked its binding, paper quality and layout inside. I found the book very didactic and now looking back with all knowledge I gained afterwards from other books I would definitely say it is a very good textbook to start learning computer science.

Discrete Mathematics

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This is my second Rosen’s book and I started reading on 1st of September, 2008, a year after I read “Life Itself”. Essays were written after the latter book and were intended to clarify it. Therefore if you are about to start reading Rosen’s works it is probably better to read essays first. I’m almost halfway through it and particularly like the discussion about mimesis, its roots and history. This is highly recommended book to read and if you were trained in chemistry, physics and computer science like myself you would find revelations on every page and would never look at modern science with the same eyes again.

Essays on Life Itself

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If you ask me now what book I recommend for a broad overview of mathematics I would not hesitate to point to this latest book that I just started reading:

The Princeton Companion to Mathematics (Hardcover)

Although it is 1000 page book with two columns of text it is actually intended to be read from cover to cover! This book is now on top of my math overview recommendations which previously included these books:

• The Road to Reality
• Comprehensive Mathematics for Computer Scientists
• Mathematics: Form and Function
• All the Mathematics You Missed
• The Nature and Growth of Modern Mathematics

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

I’ve just finished reading this book and despite some bad reviews on Amazon I wasn’t disappointed. The author’s writing style is a bit unusual with some unknown words that you need a dictionary but after a chapter I became used to it and it wasn’t a problem anymore. If you heard about Gödel theorems before but cannot repeat precisely what they are about then this book is for you and you will find detail-free sketch of the proof very clear. I really liked the author’s attack on positivism and postmodernism especially in the light of previously read Fashionable Nonsense. I also liked the conclusion at the end of the book that the life of Gödel was “incomplete” too. The book discusses Vienna Circle and Wittgenstein, relationship between Einstein and Gödel and even some political issues in the Institute for Advanced Study related to Gödel’s life (this is why I included this book under Politics category too). One remark about bad review from the professor who participated in publishing edited works of Kurt Gödel: I can publish works of Aristotle nowadays without much efforts. Will it give me the right to judge other works and proclaim without sound justification that they don’t know philosophy?

Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel (Great Discoveries)

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This one I discovered last year and just finished reading. Interesting collection of articles written in the late 70’s and early 80’s about application of mathematics. My favourite were two articles about statistics and two articles about Husserl. The article about Kant biography was nice as well.

Discrete Thoughts

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Very good book to learn about mathematical logic, distinction between syntax and semantics, different interpretations of formal languages and how this leads to various different non-classical logics. It will deepen your understanding of mathematics if you studied or encountered only classical propositional and predicate logic and want to learn more about fuzzy logic, for example, among many others. All necessary prerequisites are covered in the first 230 pages of this 500 page book including informal set theory and topology. I read most of this book couple of years ago and want to re-read it soon.

Classical and Nonclassical Logics: An Introduction to the Mathematics of Propositions

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Just finished reading it. In summary: Everything is Nothing as their complexity measure is the same. Interesting short and small book to read if you have never heard of computationalism, many world interpretation of quantum mechanics, anthropic principle, self sampling assumption and quantum immortality. Discusses everything briefly and provides bibliography. However I think I should have read David Deutsch’s “The Fabric of Reality” book first which I bought recently and put on my reading list. The number of new concepts introduced was too overwhelming so I consider to read “Theory of Nothing” second time after finishing some other related books. 

Theory of Nothing

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