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Comment by thesimon | Hacker News Reader

It is probably a great idea, but looking at the sample it looks like just another textbook that is hard and complex:

In contrast to that, I found https://openstaxcollege.org/books a really awesome resource for learning physics (on an easy level)

Edit: Cutting out all the "bullshit" seems to make it hard for a "busy adult" to easily learn the concept, but it actually seems like a good resource to improve your knowledge which you simply forgot.

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> another textbook that is hard and complex

To be fair, you were looking at the super-condensed linear algebra tutorial, which is meant to be a condensed pre-exam review for students and not as a standalone tutorial. The actual book starts off much more smoothly and introduces concepts step by step (see http://cnd.mcgill.ca/~ivan/miniref/noBSguide2LA_preview.pdf for a preview).

The "onboarding" in the math/phys book (No bullshit guide to math and physics) is even smoother. About 1/3 of the text is a review of high school math topics, which helps to establish a solid foundation understanding mechanics and calculus. (see http://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSguide_v5_previe... for a PDF preview.)

You are absolutely right though, many of the readers who have written to me over the years are adults who used the book to review what they learned at university. The compactness works well for that.

Looking at the sample, I agree with you. Condensed ≠ easy to understand. Honestly, a lot of the graduate texts I deal with look easier to understand. In my opinion, every single concept should be introduced with physical analogies if one wishes a reader with no maturity in the subject to actually understand. Then again if the author is going for "no-bullshit" this could serve as a good reference for someone who just needs a quick easy to understand reference.

That looks fine to me. He's talking about reducing a matrix to reduced row echelon form, and gives a pretty clear example. If you're giving yourself 4 pages on linear algebra, there's not much better you can do.

That said, you're not going to learn linear algebra in four pages. No royal road, and all that.

For the part of noBS I'm through I appreciate the get-to-the-point explanation and amusing (thought highly opinionated) examples. I don't think there's much you can do better when you are teaching standard concepts and notation; it will always look foreign at first.

I bought the book, because $29 for a math/physics book is cheap and if I learn one single thing from it I'm going to get many many times that amount back.

Anyways: point being, flipping through the book, it is decided not like that image you posted. It's mostly casual prose with lots of diagrams.

To my eyes it's a quick overview of some linear algebra basics, the only complex thing possibly being notation (but I would assume and hope the book builds up to it while also building intuition).

Exactly my thought - this looks like a good review for people who breezed through this stuff in high school or college. Speaking as someone who was never able to get this stuff (not for lack of trying) back then, this guide uses the same obtuse language and carries the same "if this explanation isn't immediately understandable then you probably aren't cut out for this" tone that I hated back then too.

From those freebies it does appear dense. Is the whole book like that or just the condensed mini guides?

Just the freebies. The book(s) are less dense, but still get to the point. See http://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSguide_v5_previe... and http://cnd.mcgill.ca/~ivan/miniref/noBSguide2LA_preview.pdf for the book previews.

Very nice! When do you expect LA book to be done?

I'd say beginning of the summer.

Finishing the applications chapter has been a massive time sinkhole! I wanted to make a survey of all the cool things you can do once you have the tools of linear algebra under your belt, but it's proving to be too much (Chapter 8 is getting almost as long as the rest of the book).

In the coming weeks I'll be going over the latest draft and I might do a scope-cut, in order to get it done more quickly. In summary I'd say end-of-April for "dev close" and then probably a month for the final editing with my editor, so June 1st for official release.

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