Open Thread, February 1-14, 2013

OpenThreadGuy

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, even in Discussion, it goes here.

So, I mentioned here that I might write a "(pure) mathematics for rationalists" post. Would other people be interested in such a post, and if so, what sort of concerns would you want it to address? If there are lots of LWers trying to learn mathematics I would also like to know what their goals are in doing so.

(Edit, 2/10: Thanks for the responses, everyone. I'm in the process of writing this.)

I'm interested in heuristics for assembling or specific suggestions for a ruthless course aimed for giving a well-rounded math education (that doesn't trade thorough understanding of a diverse set of tools for better expertise in any particular area).

For example, I find the following techniques useful:

Focus on the simplest texts I don't yet understand well, not on the hardest texts I can follow
Assemble a list of leading US and UK schools and make sure that I've considered topics and textbooks mentioned in their curricula
Given a text, find related texts

... (read more)

0Metus13y

Goals: Deeper understanding of mathematics as a discipline, learning of useful formal concepts in mathematics, preferably with day-to-day applications such as probability theory. Request: If possible, find a good balance between overly technical and overly practical presentation. Probability theory introduction usually suffer from the latter, more abstract concepts more from the former.

7[anonymous]13y

Why reinvent the wheel? There are plenty of decent textbooks out there already, and no apparent reason why "pure mathematics for rationalists" is any different from "pure mathematics."