/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.7251149]

What books will /sci/ considers foundamentals to a good intelectual person.

books that some value in:
historical value (newtons principia mathematica)
philosophical value (kant critique of reason)
theologian value (Thomas aquino book on faith)
scientifical value (Darwins Evolutions of species)
Literarian value (Shakespeare)
Economical value (Marxs capital and Adam smith)
Political value (Adolph hitlers my war biography)

[Anonymous No.7251151]

>>7251149

Wikipedia

[Anonymous No.7251162]

>>7251149
Reminder that if you can't do error analysis you shouldn't be here

[Anonymous No.7251172]

>>7251162
Can I read that even if I'm not a math guy?

just an average /lit/izen.

[Anonymous No.7251175]

>>7251162

I do trial and error analysis.

[Anonymous No.7251177]

>>7251172
Sure, it's actually not that tough
>>7251175
>mfw

[Anonymous No.7251179]

>>7251172

Youcan do almost any math textbook with enough scratchpaper

[Anonymous No.7251187]

>>7251162
FUCK error analysis, shit sucks

[Anonymous No.7251190]

Ashtadhyayi, Sanskrit Aṣṭādhyāyī (“Eight Chapters”), Sanskrit treatise on grammar written in the 6th to 5th century bce by the Indian grammarian Panini. This work set the linguistic standards for Classical Sanskrit. It sums up in 4,000 sutras the science of phonetics and grammar that had evolved in the Vedic religion. Panini divided his work into eight chapters, each of which is further divided into quarter chapters. Beyond defining the morphology and syntax of Sanskrit language, Ashtadhyayi distinguishes between usage in the spoken language and usage that is proper to the language of the sacred texts.

The Ashtadhyayi is generative as well as descriptive. With its complex use of metarules, transformations, and recursions, the grammar in Ashtadhyayi has been likened to the Turing machine, an idealized mathematical model that reduces the logical structure of any computing device to its essentials.

[Anonymous No.7251194]

>>7251149
Why would you read books which are 400 years old. I know this books are milestones of history, but I think you will learn more if you read a current textbook about classical mechanics instead of newtons principia mathematica.
And I would consider that "Evolutions of species" is completly obsolete nowadays.
So if you aren't very interested in science history I would know better things to do.

Also you forgot
"Disquisitiones Arithmeticae" (GauB)
Elements (Euclid)

[Anonymous No.7251195]

>>7251194
>why should we read books?
Uh, for fun?

is not like reading historical books is something bad m8.

[Anonymous No.7251197]

Liber Abaci

[Anonymous No.7251199]

>>7251195
Yeah but if you want to read a Science book, you generally don't want outdated material.

[Anonymous No.7251200]

>>7251195
>Why would you read books which are 400 years old.
Yeah, but would a current textbook not be easier to understand, more informative and up to date?

[Anonymous No.7251208]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almagest

literal wars were faught over this book

[Anonymous No.7251211]

>>7251199
>>7251200
yeah, but there's nothing wrong with reading them and later compare it to modern books.

wouldn't be aware of history and how science evolved made you a better intelectual?

it's like saying that you shouldn't read the greeks because modern philosophy is better.

[Anonymous No.7251212]

>>7251200
He has a point though. In my time doing Chemistry I've picked up Physics courses, and you will realise that Physics introductory textbooks are becoming increasingly babby with classical Physics just so they can squeeze in a little bit of useless QM. So I'd suggest that if you were to choose between the latest edition of Halliday and Resnick vs editions 2 and 3, you go for the latter, every time.

[Anonymous No.7251246]

>>7251195
This thread is about what an "intellectual person" should read, not some scientific-literary historian. You are either the latter, or a fedoric "intellectual" that wants to put himself above others because he read Newton's Principia. This thread is lost.

[Anonymous No.7251265]

>>7251246
calm down m8.

is not like reading books that changed the history is something bad or whatever.

let's just talk about books m8.

[Anonymous No.7251274]

>>7251149
The Prince

[Anonymous No.7251275]

>>7251265
Then bring it to /lit/...

[Anonymous No.7251281]

>>7251275
I just wanna know what books does /sci/ reads.

you know, since /sci/ is about science and math, maybe we could talk about science and math books.

I remember enjoying the book about bach and godel.

[Anonymous No.7251298]

>>7251281
Okay, fair enough. The only /sci/-related books anyone reads around here are modern-ish textbooks. I also read Asimov, Poe, Rothfuss, Doyle, Wilde, Dostoevzky, and Dumas. I recently started reading Kleene's "Introduction to Metamathematics" to try and improve the way I approach my research.

[Anonymous No.7251322]

>>7251281
We just want to say that it would be much more effective if you would first read current textbooks.
If you have no clue about biologie that Darwin's book isn't a good start. It's completly outdatet. He doesn't even know anything about genetics so he could hardly understand how evolution really works.
So if you find it's amusing to read such books than it's fine. But if you really want to increase your knowledge in biology that it would be a very poor choice.

[Anonymous No.7251331]

>>7251322
ah, ok, now I got your points.

I remember /sci/ once told me to read through the language glass and it was pretty neat.

[Anonymous No.7252768]

Euclid's Elements-- this book will teach you how to think mathematically (logically). Reading it is also a pleasure.

[Anonymous No.7252776]

Anything by Archimedes

[Anonymous No.7252925]

>>7251149
>Economical value
>Marx
Only good from a historical perspective.

>>7251322
Darwin really does give a compelling, intuitive and logically founded argument for evolution by natural selection. It's a great book in many a sense.

I recommend The Selfish Gene and Euclid's Elements.

Are there any recommended reads from the likes of Plato and Archimedes?

[Anonymous No.7254647]

The Qur'an>All

[Anonymous No.7254742]

>>7251149

The Bible

[Anonymous No.7254747]

You're a moron.
>marx
Really?

[Anonymous No.7254751]

>>7254747
>scientifical
what do you think

[Anonymous No.7254765]

>>7251149

[Anonymous No.7254779]

>>7251172

It's a freshman level book

[Anonymous No.7254803]

>>7251149
>historical value
The Spring and Autumn Annals
>philosophical value
I Ching
>theologian value
The Book of Rites
>scientific value
Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art
>Literary value
The Classic of Poetry
>Economical value
The Red Book
>Political Value
Book of Documents

[Anonymous No.7254813]

The Epic of Gilgamesh (Anonymous)
The Iliad (Homer)
The Odyssey (Homer)
Works and Days (Hesiod)
The Theogony (Hesiod)
The History of the Greco-Persian War (Herodotus)
The History of the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides)
The Trial and Death of Socrates (Plato)
The Republic (Plato)
Nichomachean Ethics (Aristotle)
The Aeneid (Virgil)
The Metamorphoses (Ovid)
The Histories (Polybius)
The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca (Seneca)
On Duties (Cicero)
Analects (Confucius)
The Art of War (Sun Tzu)
Beowulf (Anonymous)
The Divine Comedy (Dante)
The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer)
The Assayer (Galileo)
Principia Mathematica (Newton)
Critique of Pure Reason (Kant)
Candide (Voltaire)
Meditations on First Philosophy (Descartes)
A Treatise on Human Nature (Hume)
Two Treatises of Government (Locke)

That should last you a while.

[Anonymous No.7254850]

Euclid's Elements by Heath
A History of Greek Mathematics by Heath
The Works of Archimedes by Heath
Ptolemy's Almagest
On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres by Nicolaus Copernicus
Epitome of Copernican Astronomy and Harmonies of the World by Johannes Kepler
A Course of Pure Mathematics by G. H. Hardy
A Course of Modern Analysis by Whittaker and Watson
Course of Theoretical Physics: Mechanics by Landau and Lifshitz
An Introduction to Celestial Mechanics by Moulton
The Principle of Relativity by Albert Einstein
Course of Theoretical Physics: The Classical Theory of Fields by Landau and Lifshitz
Gravitation by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler

[Anonymous No.7254880]

>books make you intellectually competent

Classic retards.

[Anonymous No.7254881]

>>7251281
/sci/, if they are serious scientists, would only read textbooks, reviews and journals. If your only concern is being "intellectual", then you should go for the more well regarded popular-science books.

A good read is Bill Bryson's a Short History of Nearly Everything. It's a bit outdated, and doesn't contain much technical information, but has loads of interesting anecdotes you can tell people at parties if that's your goal.

[Anonymous No.7255153]

why do I have to read science related books if I'm a science major?
right now I'm reading yukio mishima

[Anonymous No.7255159]

>>7251149
OP confirmed for pseudo-intellectual.

>historical value (newtons principia mathematica)
No one reads that book because it's written in horrible english prose from back in the day. It also predates modern logic and uses infinitesimals which aren't consistent in standard analysis.
>philosophical value (kant critique of reason)
This is okay but there are better books out there now.
>theologian value (Thomas aquino book on faith)
Are you kidding me? This shit is so antiquated and narrow that the only people who would think you educated for reading it are a close circle of christian friends.
>scientifical value (Darwins Evolutions of species)
Again, there are better books.
>Literarian value (Shakespeare)
gb2elementary school
>Economical value (Marxs capital and Adam smith)
kek'd
>Political value (Adolph hitlers my war biography)
ow the edge

[Anonymous No.7255162]

>>7254803
>Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art
Is there actually a modern translation of this out there? I've always been curious about this.

[Anonymous No.7255855]

>>7255162
I just posted that list to see if anyone would shit on it. I've only read a few of those books entire. But yes, from looking at Amazon it seems like there are modern translations, and possibly online PDFs.

[Anonymous No.7255862]

>>7255855
Oh, and this is from Wikipedia
"A full translation and study of the Nine Chapters and Liu Hui's commentary is available in SHEN Kangshen "The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art" Oxford 1999. ISBN 0-19-853936-3"

[Anonymous No.7255941]

>>7254813
Stoicism, my man :^)