Re: Assistance for Math "Newbie"

From: Randy Poe (poespam-trap_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 03/23/05 

Date: 23 Mar 2005 05:15:45 -0800

AndrewC wrote:
> Hello all. I am just recently (I am in my late 20's) discovering the
> beauty of mathematics, and my interest is mostly in Applied
> Mathematics. I have took the basic mathematics courses an engineer
> takes - calculus I and II, multivariable calc, linear algebra, vector
> geometry, and discrete math. I did not take Differential Equations!
> However I really need to start from scratch because that was nearly a
> decade ago.
>
> What are the seminal books you would recommend for someone in my
> position? Also, is there one book that explains alot of concepts and
> is a must for the bookshelf?
>
> I have the Courant book, "What is Mathematics".
>

I see people have mentioned "Analysis" or "Real Analysis".
That's a key place to start before looking at anything
abstract (and at the graduate level, a lot of even the
applied stuff gets into some abstract arguments when it
comes time to prove, for instance, that a certain iteration
rule is guaranteed to lead to convergence).

Other completely different directions you might want to
examine: Optimization/Operations Research (Hillier and
Lieberman is a good elementary text that covers a lot
of different subjects). Probability and Statistics,
which can be taught at many different levels of
abstraction. There are several excellent books by Sheldon
Ross in this area that are good "meat and potatoes" starting
places that give you a lot of useful theorems and
results ("First Course in Probability", "Probability and
Stats for Scientists and Engineers", "Simulation",
"Stochastic Processes").

            - Randy

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