Judging by the URL, this book was used for CMU's 15-151 / 21-128, which is a first-semester course for CS and math undergrads. Nowadays, the course uses [0].<p>[0] <a href="https://infinitedescent.xyz/" rel="nofollow">https://infinitedescent.xyz/</a>
As a CS major who went to CMU years ago, my favorite book from all of my professors was for my 15-213 class called Computer Systems: A Programmers Perspective<p>I remember at the time the book was in loose leaf paper so it warms my heart to see the book has a 3rd edition. It was used as a core part of teaching assembly, memory representations, and getting students ready for the operating systems class. When I help people learn to program, it's the only book I think is a must have:<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Systems-Programmers-Perspective-Edition/dp/013409266X" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Systems-Programmers-Perspect...</a>
Does anyone know of an entry level book that could take someone through say, high school math to college alegbra / calculus?<p>This is my singular biggest hurdle in going back to school to finish my degree and I'd love to fill the gaps I have around mathematics so I can not only finish my degree; I'd also like to participate in some more advanced computer science that rely heavily on underlying computation.
At some point I was interested in learning to read and write proofs.<p>I did the "Introduction to Mathematical Thinking" MOOC from Keith Devlin. The curriculum is available as a book as well.<p>The class is basically how to write and read proofs for non-math majors. It starts pretty slow, but gets harder at some point. The number theory proofs were fun.<p>You 'got to' grade others proofs online, and they graded yours which was an interesting way to get familiar with reading and writing proofs.<p>I recommend it because instead of an area of math it focuses on what it means to prove something. And the teacher is pretty entertaining.<p><a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Introduction-Mathematical-Thinking-Keith-Devlin/dp/0615653634" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.ca/Introduction-Mathematical-Thinking-Kei...</a><p><a href="https://www.coursera.org/learn/mathematical-thinking" rel="nofollow">https://www.coursera.org/learn/mathematical-thinking</a>
With that title and reception I can imagine people bookmarking this for „later“ and feeling good about it. But who reads that stuff really?<p>To each their own, but 700+ pages for material that is done in my experience in the first 2-3 weeks of undergraduate math is more disheartening than empowering for a student, in my opinion.<p>If you can open a math book anywhere in the last 20% of pages and just start reading, you are looking at pop science and not lecture notes.
FWIW, Barr and Wells in a well respected reference on category theory
[1] use a different definition of a function than the one in this
book. Essentially they avoid insisting on the concrete model of a
function as a set of ordered pairs (which they call its graph), and
would regard two functions having identical graphs as being
nevertheless distinct if they have different co-domains (section
1.2). IMO their definition is better thought out and ultimately less
troublesome when it comes to reasoning about functions. The definition
of a function is always the first thing I check in any book about math
for a rough assessment of whether reading the rest of it might make me
dumber or smarter.<p>[1] <a href="https://abstractmath.org/CTCS/CTCS.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://abstractmath.org/CTCS/CTCS.pdf</a>
Can someone share how this compares to Math for Computer Science by Lehman, Leighton, and Meyer ?
<a href="https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.042/spring17/mcs.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.042/spring17/mcs.pdf</a>
To echo others on writing style, it's very lucid. This would be a fantastic coffee table book; not for everyone, but for a countable number of people.
Note that these are 700 pages which could take multiple years (if you're doing it in your spare time) to go through. I'm not sure who would have the motivation and discipline for this.
If I remember correctly, Brendan Sullivan had a reputation as a TA for Concepts of Mathematics at CMU as "Math Jesus", not sure if that was a testament to his pedagogical skills or just due to the long hair and beard...
"This work is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Arts in Mathematical Sciences."<p>So does that mean this is his PhD thesis? What's a Doctor of Arts?
If you want to go deeply into formalized mathematics, take a look at the Metamath Proof Explorer <<a href="https://us.metamath.org/mpeuni/mmset.html" rel="nofollow">https://us.metamath.org/mpeuni/mmset.html</a>>. It defines a set of axioms, and formally verifies every proof showing every step (hiding nothing).
How do people here like to read pdfs? It doesn't work on my ebook reader and I never actually read anything long-form on a computer screen, even when I think I will. Someone below mentioned using a service to print and bind into a book. Anyone have a better workflow for this kind of thing?
One thing I've always wanted is a comprehensive guide to mathematical notation, which tells you what symbols mean or at least what field of mathematics they come from.<p>I frequently come across all sorts of weird mathematical symbols in papers, and of course these symbols are virtually never explained, so I have no idea what they mean.<p>Even better would be if there was some way an LLM could read through a paper itself and then explain the equations.
Slightly off topic - does anyone know a 'reader mode' for PDFs?<p>I frequently look at PDFs online and am looking for a tool that reformats the PDF into a single column, so I can just scroll, absorbing the content.
If I could read, and understand, a textbook like this in a day, I would be so happy. Alas, I must only look with longing at the links provided by HN, thinking wistfully 'someday...'