Noted mathematician Rudin dies at 89

My copy of baby Rudin (Principles of Mathematical Analysis) was the first "real" math textbook I used. It was notorious at the bookstore. At $135, it was more than a dollar per piece of paper, and smaller than a volume of poetry, with decently sized text and a good layout. But make no mistake--it could kill a man, and it was well worth every penny.

It's not an exaggeration to say that you could spend a whole hour working through a single page, and in fact that's what the first day in my Real Analysis class was: learning how hardcore math is really done. It has an astonishing economy of expression, where everything you need to understand a proof is written, but if you blink you'll have to start over. It doesn't just feed you facts and theorems to memorize. Skill is developed in the process of reading, because reading this book requires unpacking explanations, filling in details, and making connections for yourself.

The closest analogy I can make is that it's like watching a grandmaster play a real game of chess, when all your previous chess lessons had been finding the correct four moves from a handful of common positions. It's not necessarily the best or easiest way to learn real analysis itself, but having learned real analysis from that book, you are prepared to not only learn, but master, any other type of math you happen to come across.

Requiescat in pace.

Rudin was responsible for my most irksome frustrations and my most delightful enlightenment. Never have 200 pages stolen so many months from me, and given me a new life as math-phile. But going through it all, alone and unprepared, is an experience I would happily repeat.

Rest in peace, Sir.

"After retiring in 1991, Rudin wrote about his early life, turbulent war years and math career in an autobiography titled 'As I Remember It.'"

Rudin's autobiography is quite a good read--certainly much easier going than "baby Rudin" (Principles of Mathematical Analysis), which is a masterpiece but not for recreational reading.

There is something to be said for books that are so hard, they engage your "eye of the tiger" response. Often I quit something because I'm frustrated and I think, "if this supposedly gentle thing frustrates me, the real stuff later on is gonna kill me." When you read e.g. baby Rudin, you get a sense that this is the real stuff, and you're getting your ass kicked by the best.

However, there is also something to be said for motivation. In some topics, like computability, (much of) what we want out of our theory can be understood in an hour, or at least it feels that way. We can then spend the rest of the time happily quenching our thirst. Not so with analysis. The core problems of analysis seem obscure, or plain incomprehensible, unless you're already on the other side.

When it comes to analysis in particular, one approach is to start studying it in the order it was discovered. There's a well-regarded book called Analysis by Its History, but I haven't read it. There's another called Understanding Analysis by Stephen Abbott that I recommend if you want to regroup before attacking baby Rudin again.

I loved Baby Rudin! It started my complicated love affair with mathematics. The book blew my mind away with its wonderful exposition. It's the one math book that I've worked out from cover to cover. The problems are high quality as well. I have fond (and frustrating!) memories of working them out.

I have his other 2 books as well - Adult Rudin & Functional Analysis. Sadly, I never really got into those (as my mathematical interests diverged somewhat from Analysis).

The only other book that I've read that comes close to Baby Rudin's exposition is Gamelin's Topology - an underrated classic.

Here's his house, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright: http://www.peterbeers.net/interests/flw_rt/Wisconsin/Rudin/R...

I loved working through my Baby Rudin so much that, once I had my 'ah hah' moment, I created an open source project named in his honor.

RIP Professor Rudin.

I remember Alex Nagel from Honors Calc I at UW. Tough class. Its sad to hear about his colleague, but Rudin lived an amazing life.

RIP Rudin.