Thread: What good mathematical book to buy

Hello guys i am trying to perfect my math and i feel i am on the right road i don't know if this is a waist of money, but i think a mathematical book should help me if i buy a good one.

Im looking for Geometry levers and above ( if it contains a little bit of everything it would be better)
More than 400 pages or close.
Able to be bought in Barnes and noble.
and Other characteristics you Guys Known...
Feel free to add more info. Thanks!

Highly recommend Mathematics for the Nonmathematician, by Morris Kline.

Originally Posted by Ackbeet

Highly recommend Mathematics for the Nonmathematician, by Morris Kline.

3 dollars sounds nice thanks but to make the Barnes and noble free shipping need 25$ and idk what else to buy i would love more math stuff

Originally Posted by Ackbeet

Highly recommend Mathematics for the Nonmathematician, by Morris Kline.

By the way how many pages does it have? For it price it looks like , less than 200 pages

You know, it's only a bargain if you're looking for it, right?

Mathematics for the Nonmathematician has, according to Amazon, 641 pages. It's a Dover Publications book. Dover specializes in old classics that they print at low cost. I love Dover!

You could get the same author's Calculus: An Intuitive and Physical Approach. And if even that isn't enough, have a little fun and get N. David Mermin's Boojums All the Way Through, a wonderful book about writing science well.

Incidentally, I should warn you that in Mathematics for the Nonmathematician, Kline mounts a wrong-headed attack on Augustine in Chapter 1, page 1, which takes the form of this quotation:

One can wisely doubt whether the study of mathematics is worth while and can find good authority to support him. As far back as about the year 400 A.D., St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in Africa and one of the great fathers of Christianity, had this to say:

The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.

Perhaps St. Augustine, with prophetic insight into the conflicts which were to arise later between the mathematically minded scientists of recent centuries and religious leaders, was seeking to discourage the further development of the subject. At any rate there is no question as to his attitude.

Unfortunately, there is almost nothing correct here. The latin word mathematici cannot, given the context in which the word appears, be translated "mathematician". Instead, it must be translated "numerologist". The correct translation of the Augustine passage reads thus:

For this reason, the good Christian should beware not only numerologists, but all those who make impious divinations, above all when they tell truth. Otherwise, they may deceive the soul, and ensnare her in a pact of friendship with demons.

See here for a reference. So you see that Augustine cannot be made out to object to mathematics.

In addition, the way Kline refers to the conflict between the mathematically minded scientists and the religious leaders makes it seem like the conflict was between science and religion, whereas it was not. This is neither the time nor the place for this debate, so I won't go into it. I just wanted to warn you about some of the inaccuracies. It's still a really good book on mathematics.

Originally Posted by Ackbeet

Incidentally, I should warn you that in Mathematics for the Nonmathematician, Kline mounts a wrong-headed attack on Augustine in Chapter 1, page 1, which takes the form of this quotation:



Unfortunately, there is almost nothing correct here. The latin word mathematici cannot, given the context in which the word appears, be translated "mathematician". Instead, it must be translated "numerologist". The correct translation of the Augustine passage reads thus:



See here for a reference. So you see that Augustine cannot be made out to object to mathematics.

In addition, the way Kline refers to the conflict between the mathematically minded scientists and the religious leaders makes it seem like the conflict was between science and religion, whereas it was not. This is neither the time nor the place for this debate, so I won't go into it. I just wanted to warn you about some of the inaccuracies. It's still a really good book on mathematics.

Well looks like i still don't understand anything haha, Ill read it tomorrow.
This definitely deserver both a thanks and a Forum thanks.

Originally Posted by vaironxxrd

Hello guys i am trying to perfect my math and i feel i am on the right road i don't know if this is a waist of money, but i think a mathematical book should help me if i buy a good one.

Im looking for Geometry levers and above ( if it contains a little bit of everything it would be better)
More than 400 pages or close.
Able to be bought in Barnes and noble.
and Other characteristics you Guys Known...
Feel free to add more info. Thanks!

What is Mathematics by Courant and Robbins

Originally Posted by Ackbeet

Incidentally, I should warn you that in Mathematics for the Nonmathematician, Kline mounts a wrong-headed attack on Augustine in Chapter 1, page 1, which takes the form of this quotation:

One can wisely doubt whether the study of mathematics is worth while and can find good authority to support him. As far back as about the year 400 A.D., St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in Africa and one of the great fathers of Christianity, had this to say:

The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.

Perhaps St. Augustine, with prophetic insight into the conflicts which were to arise later between the mathematically minded scientists of recent centuries and religious leaders, was seeking to discourage the further development of the subject. At any rate there is no question as to his attitude.

Unfortunately, there is almost nothing correct here. The latin word mathematici cannot, given the context in which the word appears, be translated "mathematician". Instead, it must be translated "numerologist". The correct translation of the Augustine passage reads thus:

For this reason, the good Christian should beware not only numerologists, but all those who make impious divinations, above all when they tell truth. Otherwise, they may deceive the soul, and ensnare her in a pact of friendship with demons.

See here for a reference. So you see that Augustine cannot be made out to object to mathematics.

In addition, the way Kline refers to the conflict between the mathematically minded scientists and the religious leaders makes it seem like the conflict was between science and religion, whereas it was not. This is neither the time nor the place for this debate, so I won't go into it. I just wanted to warn you about some of the inaccuracies. It's still a really good book on mathematics.

You know that you are ruining one of my favourite stories/jokes by providing the real back story.

But we don't have to travel far in time or space from Augustine and Hippo to find a mathematician/philosophers being torn appart by christian monks/fanatics at the instigation of another church father, "saint" and patriarch. So just maybe the joke interpretation is closer to his real meaning (and/or that of his co-religionists) than some might like us to believe.

CB

Originally Posted by CaptainBlack

You know that you are ruining one of my favourite stories/jokes by providing the real back story.

But we don't have to travel far in time or space from Augustine and Hippo to find a mathematician/philosophers being torn appart by christian monks/fanatics at the instigation of another church father, "saint" and patriarch. So just maybe the joke interpretation is closer to his real meaning (and/or that of his co-religionists) than some might like us to believe.

CB

Hehe. You know, the whole time I was writing post # 6, I was thinking to myself, "What's CB going to do/say?"

Originally Posted by Ackbeet

Originally Posted by Kline

"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell." -- Augustine of Hippo.

If time travel was possible, I would have argued that Bishop Berkeley has read Kline and took the quote-mined advice all too seriously!

Originally Posted by TheCoffeeMachine

If time travel was possible, I would have argued that Bishop Berkeley has read Kline and took the quote-mined advice all too seriously!

In the words of Don Pedro from Much Ado about Nothing, "[T]his learned constable is too cunning to be understood."

Took which advice seriously? And how interpreted?

Are these math jokes?

Originally Posted by Ackbeet

In the words of Don Pedro from Much Ado about Nothing, "[T]his learned constable is too cunning to be understood."

Took which advice seriously? And how interpreted?

I'm talking about The Analyst: A DISCOURSE Addressed to an Infidel Mathematician. The writer, Bishop Berkeley, appears to have taken Augustine's warning of good Christians against 'mathematicians', as found in Kline's book... Never mind! (I must say I saw the quote as someone's signature in another forum and was bit perplexed by it. It makes more sense now).

Hmm. If the wiki page to which you linked is to be believed, then here's a highly relevant quote, I think:

The general point was not to mock mathematics or mathematicians (Berkeley himself was an accomplished mathematician in his youth), but rather to show that mathematicians, like Christians, relied upon incomprehensible 'mysteries' in the foundations of their reasoning.