"Problems worthy of attack
prove their worth
by hitting back." - Piet Hein
A kind of running diary and rambling pieces on my struggles with assorted books, classes, and other things, as they happen. You must be pretty bored to be reading this...
Visual Complex Analysis, by Tristan Needham -- an absolutely fantastic book, highest possible recommendation to anyone with calculus who likes pictures. Reads better than a novel.
The Way of Analysis, by Strichartz -- Heavy going at times, but recommended - real analysis is damn useful, and this book does a good job of presenting it.
Comprehensive Intro. to Differential Geometry, by Spivak -- beautiful, enlightening, highly recommended, but be warned, it is very challenging particularly for people like me who haven't had much prior exposure to highly rigorous texts.
Gauge Fields, Knots, and Gravity, by Baez and Munian -- another stunning, engrossing, entertaining book. It goes on a wild adventure ride, starting from Maxwell's Equations, to some differential geometry, to 'gauge fields' and the Yang-Mills equations, to knots, and then to general relativity. Simply outstanding.
Geometrical Methods of Mathematical Physics, by Schutz - just got this, to help me deal with Spivak's text. Looks good so far, but haven't read nearly enough to give a recommendation.
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