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Time is very, very precious. One piece of advice to learners: A math book takes a very long time to read. Optimize for "best", and best fit only. If it's fre

by dkural 13y ago

Time is very, very precious. One piece of advice to learners: A math book takes a very long time to read. Optimize for "best", and best fit only. If it's free, good, if not, it's still ultimately the best return on investment! You can borrow it from a local library, much better to spend one hour doing that, than hundreds of hours on a sub par work. Good books are a good investment.

Datsundere 13y ago
Free doesn't always mean good though. I recommend reading things that are rated well and reviewed properly by a community. I think that would be the most optimized way so you won't spend time reading books that don't explain things very well. You can always try other books if the one you're reading isn't explaining some parts very well though.
- dkural 13y ago
  Exactly my point - you make it more clear: free != good. Must optimize for good. That kind of community would be great.
pervycreeper 13y ago
A guide to the "best" books would certainly be useful, in that case.
- kaybe 13y ago
  University professors often have a list of recommended reading on their websites. (Ad hoc I could only link to German ones, sorry.)
aet 13y ago
FYI: Most of these are not free books. These are PDF copies of books are most likely illegal in U.S. I agree, books are a good investment, so support the authors and buy.
VLM 13y ago
There is a best fit algorithm where you have to balance the tradeoffs of switching books for one topic. For example lets say you're learning calc and you have a perfectly good book but the author's explanation of Green's theorem simply doesn't resonate with you. Yes, there's always wikipedia or mathworld or one of the online lecture series... but, if its free and fast and searchable, may want to try another book's perspective. I took a EE type microwave class in the 90s where the instructor provided a lot of value by not specifying one textbook but gave us the best one or two photocopied pages from perhaps a hundred widely varying books. Sometimes the ideal textbook for a rare enough niche simply doesn't exist, or something like it existed but its 30 years out of date, or...

by dkural 13y ago

Datsundere 13y ago

Free doesn't always mean good though. I recommend reading things that are rated well and reviewed properly by a community. I think that would be the most optimized way so you won't spend time reading books that don't explain things very well. You can always try other books if the one you're reading isn't explaining some parts very well though.

dkural 13y ago
Exactly my point - you make it more clear: free != good. Must optimize for good. That kind of community would be great.

pervycreeper 13y ago

A guide to the "best" books would certainly be useful, in that case.

kaybe 13y ago
University professors often have a list of recommended reading on their websites. (Ad hoc I could only link to German ones, sorry.)

aet 13y ago

FYI: Most of these are not free books. These are PDF copies of books are most likely illegal in U.S. I agree, books are a good investment, so support the authors and buy.

VLM 13y ago

There is a best fit algorithm where you have to balance the tradeoffs of switching books for one topic. For example lets say you're learning calc and you have a perfectly good book but the author's explanation of Green's theorem simply doesn't resonate with you. Yes, there's always wikipedia or mathworld or one of the online lecture series... but, if its free and fast and searchable, may want to try another book's perspective. I took a EE type microwave class in the 90s where the instructor provided a lot of value by not specifying one textbook but gave us the best one or two photocopied pages from perhaps a hundred widely varying books. Sometimes the ideal textbook for a rare enough niche simply doesn't exist, or something like it existed but its 30 years out of date, or...