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Book titles like these are just more evidence that some mathematicians don't understand (or willfully misconstrue) the meaning of words like "basic" or "introdu
by gaur 11y ago
Book titles like these are just more evidence that some mathematicians don't understand (or willfully misconstrue) the meaning of words like "basic" or "introduction".
"Basic Algebra" means "material typically covered in late middle or early high school".
- analog31 11y agoOn an amusing note, I noticed the title, and decided to show my daughter, who is in high school. She knew that I was joking. I had already asked her, after her first day of algebra class, if she had learned about groups.
- danharaj 11y agoI disagree. The word "introduction" immediately introduces ambiguity: Introduction to whom? An introduction to the aspiring physicist will certainly look drastically different from one to a high school student or an undergraduate mathematics student, but they all have reasonable need of an introduction to abstract algebra.
- eastWestMath 11y agoI feel like mathematicians are the ones who get to decide what constitutes basic algebra.
- eastWestMath 11y agoI feel like mathematicians are the ones who get to decide what constitutes basic algebra.
- kzhahou 11y agoNo, the problem here is that the word ALGEBRA has two meanings, in high school vs college+ contexts. They share the same name and in both you can state that ax=bx => a=b ... but the similarities end soon after. The material here is precisely what you'd expect in your first (i.e., basic) college algebra class.
- mathgenius 11y agoYeah, and watch out for the word "Elementary". Mathematicians use this word to mean "can be understood by a single person". This in contrast to the kind of maths that leans on other difficult maths so much that no one person can figure it all out. That mathematics is the non-elementary kind.
- jacinda 11y agoHe states on the website that these texts are intended for first-year graduate students in mathematics. This is an "Introduction" in the same way that a graduate-level course in algorithms is an introduction for a Computer Science Ph.D but probably wouldn't make sense to a first-year undergraduate.
- eccstartup 11y agoThat's because your level of mathematics is tooooo low.