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Given everyone recommending books for math autodidacts interested in learning the "breadth" of mathematics, I cannot recommend more highly Saunder's MacLane's "
by tel 12y ago
Given everyone recommending books for math autodidacts interested in learning the "breadth" of mathematics, I cannot recommend more highly Saunder's MacLane's "Mathematics, Form and Function".
It reads as a high level false-historical account of how math might have been developed, in its entirety, if it unfolded in the most direct and logical way from the human experiences we all share (guided by understanding of where mathematics has ended up in the modern age).
The false-historical expose is fantastic. The goal becomes less to express things as accurately and comprehensively as modernly possible—which you'll experience as you take on graduate level books or modern papers—but instead to demonstrate large-scope intuition for why whole fields evolved as they did and how they are all intermingled.
- marai2 12y agoGoing back to the "breadth" recommendations, if someone wants a real appetizing sushi sampler of the breadth of Mathematics, I would highly recommend "The Joy of X" http://www.amazon.com/Joy-Guided-Tour-Math-Infinity/dp/0544105850 http://www.amazon.com/Joy-Guided-Tour-Math-Infinity/dp/05441... It covers a number of topics in Mathematics and makes them really easy to follow for someone with no background in Maths. I especially liked how in a few pages I succinctly understood div, grad and curl from vector calculus. For anyone wanting to start out on a full course meal of Mathematics this would make a very appetizing sampler.