Your favorite math reference book(s)?

[Felix Gross]

As a West German Mech Eng / Chem Eng student in the 80s I used a lot of very well written textbooks (math, chemistry, thermodynamics, mechanics etc.) from East Germany. They were very cheap too. I was always wondering, why professors e.g. in West Germany rarely came up with something comparable.

Later I gained the impression that writing textbooks or handbooks was not considered in West Germany as "valuable" as the publishing of research papers. If those professors would write books, it would rather for graduate students than undergrads.

[klesl]

As a chem student I used in the past, besides of books published by alma matter, czech translation of handbook published in East Germany
H. J. Bartsch - Matematické vzorce (H. J. Bartsch - Matematische formeln)
Currently I use two Engineering Mathematics books - the 1st one is written by K. A. Stroud and D. J. Booth ant the 2nd is written by J. Bird and some Schaum's outlines books.

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

(12-30-2017 11:11 AM)Pekis Wrote:  

(12-30-2017 12:37 AM)SlideRule Wrote:  THIS is the final volume of Prof. Smirnov's five-volume course of
higher mathematics...

BEST!
SlideRule

Famous vodka indeed

How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quintic equations… %‑)

[BobVA]

Not precisely mathematics, but I get a lot of use out of "Engineering Formulas" by Kurt Gieck. A very handy and compact compendium of math tools pocket sized. (The version I have has all the left hand pages blank, so there's plenty of room for notes, too!)

[matthiaspaul]

(12-30-2017 12:09 AM)pier4r Wrote:  While I appreciate the sources from Germany (since sooner or later I will master the German language), I wonder why they are, well, all from East Germany (or Russia through East Germany). Impressive.

Grown up in Western Germany I have asked myself this question many times as well.

It probably was a combination of several factors, some of which have been already mentioned. Also, the (usually rather low) book prices in East Germany were dictated through so called Preisanordnungen (PAOs) by their government for political reasons (prestige, education) and didn't (had to) reflect actual product costs or the amount of time spent on preparing a book - so authors and publishers could spend much more time improving the contents than publishers in the West which had to make a profit to survive.

Greetings,

Matthias

[John Smitherman]

The Schaum's Outline of Mathematical Handbook of Formulas and Tables by Murray Spiegel was very useful as a math reference in college in the late 1970's to early 1980's. It fit nicely in my backpack.


Regards,

John

[pier4r]

(01-12-2018 01:10 AM)matthiaspaul Wrote:  It probably was a combination of several factors, some of which have been already mentioned. Also, the (usually rather low) book prices in East Germany were dictated through so called Preisanordnungen (PAOs) by their government for political reasons (prestige, education) and didn't (had to) reflect actual product costs or the amount of time spent on preparing a book - so authors and publishers could spend much more time improving the contents than publishers in the West which had to make a profit to survive.

Would it mean that the "free market" is not always producing good goods? (not that it would be a surprise)

[John Smitherman]

(01-13-2018 03:52 PM)pier4r Wrote:  

(01-12-2018 01:10 AM)matthiaspaul Wrote:  

Would it mean that the "free market" is not always producing good goods? (not that it would be a surprise)

While East Germany was writing math books and producing Trabant, West Germany was producing Porsche, Audi, VolksWagen, Mercedes Benz and BMW.

[pier4r]

(01-14-2018 03:29 AM)John Smitherman Wrote:  While East Germany was writing math books and producing Trabant, West Germany was producing Porsche, Audi, VolksWagen, Mercedes Benz and BMW.

I don't see the connection with "the 'free market' is not always producing good goods".