/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.10206171]

ITT: Shitty textbooks.

[Anonymous No.10206177]

[Anonymous No.10206183]

[Anonymous No.10206188]

>>10206171
Is it that bad?

[Anonymous No.10206191]

>>10206171
hey, i liked that book

shitty book: kardar’s stat mech book. it’s a cluaterfuck of page-wide equations with basically no concepts

[Anonymous No.10206200]

>>10206191
>kardar’s stat mech book
seconding this

the books are awful, the only one to make sense of them is just his ocw lectures

[Anonymous No.10206258]

>>10206188

OP is a faggot retard who probably hasn't even studied one chapter off Boas' text. Don't listen to him. It's a great textbook for lower-level undergraduate mathematical methods textbook. I don't know about other sciences but for Physics, this book will serve you will. I will as far as to say that it will introduce you to enough math for any physics course you take up until early years of a typical graduate school coursework.

[Anonymous No.10206276]

>>10206183
FUCK YOU! That's the most awesome book ever

[Anonymous No.10206285]

>>10206177
CLRS is a good primer book with a pool of rich examples. I personally liked Sedgewick and Flajolet's 2 part books a bit more, but that's because I like how they go crazy by part 2.

[Anonymous No.10206353]

>>10206258
Too low level for anybody not in high school or a really shitty school.

[Anonymous No.10206361]

>>10206353
nah, Boaz' mathematical methods is for sure undergrad-level, and a very good undergrad text at that, for physicists wanting a comprehensive overview of the many mathematical methods we use.

when i used it, it was like, i donno, 6 years ago? i'm so fucking old now.... *crack* but it was good *sip* but i can't give you all the details, that was so long ago, but.... *sip* it was a useful book

[Anonymous No.10206362]

>>10206353
This was the book they used in the physics program at UC Santa Cruz. Which, when I was there, was 25th in physics and 3rd in astrophysics in the US.

[Anonymous No.10206363]

>>10206171
Kek

[Anonymous No.10206367]

>>10206362
>bringing up grad program rankings

[Anonymous No.10206379]

i haven't bothered to read this book (pic related) but on principle i believe it is by definition absolute shit. it's a book intended to teach undergrads string theory.

it would be one thing if string theory could be considered "real physics" as opposed to a set of mathematical techniques that actually have no bearing on empirical physics, but alas, it is not. string theory is a niche subject for physicists who enjoy speculating on pure math (keep in mind that david gross says that "string theory is not a real theory yet. it's just a framework" and that no nonpurturbative formulation of string theory exists. also note that it has no experimental relevance and probably makes no more than zero predictions about real physical phenomena, even at high energies)

the fact that this book exists is shameful.

if you want to learn string theory (which, keep in mind, has no relevance to empirical physical science for the foreseeable future), then learn QM then GR then QFT and then maybe study ST from Polchinski's books. pic related book is entirely and completely useless and its use in undergrad courses is disgraceful

[Anonymous No.10206385]

Who the fuck designed the covers of these!! They split the word like they couldn't fit "physics" in one line.

[Anonymous No.10206387]

>>10206379
Relativistic and quantum theories remind in the hypothesis realm for a while as well.
I agree though that it’s “futuristic”, and niche, but nonetheless interesting.

I’m not familiar with the text book as well so I have nothing else to add but the scientific intrigue, even if speculative is legitimate, unlike say Pseudoscientific crap.

[Anonymous No.10206397]

>>10206387
sure, so maybe a graduate-level ST book is defensible, like Polchinski's books. those are OK -- they're intended for people who are already specializing in a particular breed of high energy physics

OTOH the Zwiebach "ST for undergrads" book is completely indefensible. even senior undergrads cannot possibly understand QFT, so teaching them the "successor/replacement/failed replacement" to QFT is absolutely useless and moreover most definitely leading them down a rabbit hole toward false "truths". there is no place in undergraduate education to be teaching high-level, speculative, controversial theories. undergrads could very well just as easily spend their time on learning physics that has been _empirically confirmed_ including quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, particle physics, and the standard model -- at least the latter two of those things go well beyond the standard undergrad curriculum, and unlike string theory, they are theories that are well-confirmed empirically, unlike ST. therefore we should definitely NOT be making courses like "String Theory for Undergraduates" -- to me that is clearly a SHIT course

[Anonymous No.10206404]

>>10206361
>and a very good undergrad text at that, for physicists wanting a comprehensive overview of the many mathematical methods we use.

Chapters
>Infinite series, power series
>Complex numbers
>Linear algebra
>Partial differentiation
>Multiple integrals
>Vector analysis
>Fourier series and transforms
>Ordinary differential equations
>Special functions
>Series solution of differential equations; Legendre, Bessel, Hermite, and Laguerre functions
>Partial differential equations
>Functions of a complex variable
>Probability and statistics
Stuff you should have seen in other courses.
>Calculus of variations
>Tensor analysis
Only new stuff. Better off having a full course on them.

[Anonymous No.10206420]

>>10206361
Not a good book, maybe a quick encyclopedia at best, but not a good book

[Anonymous No.10206430]

>>10206171
Griffiths intro to electrodynamics left a bad taste in my mouth but it may have been from the shitty teacher and absolute garbage class than the book itself.

[Anonymous No.10206539]

>”hehe I see you did well on problem 12, would be a real shame if 13 was completely fucking different and made it so a different technique was required”

[Anonymous No.10206546]

>>10206539
I don't understand the hate these books get, they have a decent amount of rigor and any decent prof will satisfy your autistic need for rigor during office hours.

[Anonymous No.10206570]

>>10206546
They're actually the best books on the material. Students are just fucking dumb and can't do calculus at that level unless they have the formalism from analysis to fall back on.
Also, for brainlets:
analysis is not a replacement for calculus. Analysis doesn't cover related rates or optimization problems. Calculus is a techniques course while analysis is a theory course.