Ask HN: What is your favorite introductory-level textbook? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is your favorite introductory-level textbook?

5 pointsmrtonypino4 comments

Eleven years after graduating I have rediscovered how enjoyable it is to flip through a high quality intro textbook on a topic about which you are curious.

I’ll go first:

Calculus and Analytic Geometry (1951) by George Thomas

It’s readily available for < $10 and I find it’s style much more engaging than contemporary textbooks on the same topic.

And a bonus one - when we had questions for the doctor when my wife was pregnant, I read the beginning of this and can say with reasonably certainty that I reduced the probably of some negative outcomes as a result:

Callen's Ultrasonography in Obstetrics and Gynecology (Mary Norton, 2016)

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I love introductory textbooks. Some of my favorites:

"Starting Forth" - Leo Brodie

"Computer Science, Logo-Style" series - Brian Harvey

"Algebra", "Functions and Graphs", "Methods of Coordinates", "Trigonometry" - I.M. Gelfand (does anyone know if he completed his Geometry textbook? I've never seen it. I've also never seen his "Calculus" or "Combinatorics" books, although I know they exist. I suspect his "Combinatorics" book is more advanced than he intended to produce.)

"Sage for Undergraduates" - Gregory Bard

Late reply, but Gelfand's geometry textbook was published [0] in 2020. I think it was completed by his colleagues after his death in 2009. The calculus [1] and combinatorics [2] books are also in print.

[0] https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781071602973

[1] https://store.doverpublications.com/0486414485.html

[2] https://store.doverpublications.com/0486425665.html

Thank you for pointing me to these.

Physics As a Liberal Art --James S Trefil

A brilliant epic journey through the history of what we'd now call physics, beginning from primitive man pondering the night sky, right through to splitting the atom and the atomic age. Written for the non-scientist in such a way that the reader's understanding of the subject evolves with the book's journey through the centuries.

Sadly out of print now, it seems and I lent someone my copy and never got it back.

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