Ask HN: Graduation Present for Aspiring Math Major? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Graduation Present for Aspiring Math Major?

4 pointstokenadult14 comments

One of my wife's piano students is going off to college, and the student wants to major in math, at a liberal arts college with a strong mathematics department. As we are invited to her high school graduation party, I thought we ought to bring a gift along, and I'm wondering what you suggest as a gift to send someone off to college as a math major. I can think of a few books, but perhaps you have some other ideas. Any and all hacker-friendly suggestions welcome. Her dad is an MIT-trained engineer and has run a start-up business for a number of years, so I figured this was the right place to ask this question.

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The Princeton Companion to Mathematics (http://www.amazon.com/Princeton-Companion-Mathematics-Timoth...)

A whiteboard would be seriously the most practical. As a college student myself, I'd say that most textbook gifts given to you relating to your major usually collects dust in the corner of the room. A whiteboard though would be useful, for math classes or even GE classes that she'll need to take.

Blackboard is nice, but your roommate will hate you if you keep chalking away in the middle of night cramming for a final.

Something from Grand Illusions might be fitting: http://www.grand-illusions.com/acatalog/

Lots of interesting / nerdy gifts, including some math related: http://www.grand-illusions.com/acatalog/Maths_Toys.html

Feynman is great choice too. "Surely you're joking mr Feynman" is a classic.

For books i'd suggest Men of Mathematics that has inspired countless people to math careers or Terence Tao's Solving Mathematical Problems, which is excellent.

Now, if money's no object, i.e. you're willing to spend around $200, the gomboc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gömböc) is a wonderful object to buy, you can buy it at the gomboc-shop.com

There's a recent text about the science of music. I gave it to my father, but didn't read it myself. (He's both very technical and has a strong background in music.)

He recently commented that he was surprised at how interesting he was finding it.

If I recall / learn from him the title, I'll follow up.

Are you thinking of A Geometry of Music: Harmony and Counterpoint in the Extended Common Practice? I learned about that book here on HN from another participant.

http://www.amazon.com/Geometry-Music-Counterpoint-Extended-P...

I don't think that's the one I'm recalling, though that title is interesting.

I'll have to ask him. I'll probably speak with him this weekend.

P.S. I hope the OP will take a look at tokenadult's title. It might be a good choice.

"Coolest" math book on my shelf (I'm a Math/CS Major) is "Street-Fighting Mathematics" by Sanjoy Mahajan. It's about "the art of educated guessing and opportunistic problem solving". The author used to teach these topics as a class at MIT.

A blackboard for his room.

Whiteboard ftw!

Well, I said blackboard because we're talking about a potential math major and I'm pretty sure a majority of mathematicians prefer blackboard and chalk.

A slide rule and an abacus.

A couple ideas:

* Nice mechanical pencils

* A Feynman book

Mathematica

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