
No bullshit guide to math and physics - ivan_ah
http://minireference.com
======
pflats
I read the first 10 pages of the pdf. I'm not sure who you think your target
audience is, but this book doesn't seem to serve any of them.

You gloss over huge sections of algebra, and in doing so, ignore incredibly
common mistakes that students make. Take a look at the top of page 9, 6
\sqrt{x} - 7 = [...]. You solve that out, but give no reason as to why you got
rid of the 7 first, the 6 second, and the radical third. This is not an easy
concept, nor is it an academic distinction.

Math might be easy for you, but it probably isn't for your target audience.
You're assuming entirely too much about what your readers will know.

Beyond that, some of your math (and math history) has flaws.

"So this is what number meant during the whole middle ages. The notion of 2.5
goats didn’t make any sense to the people of those days. They would have been
totally confused by the menu at Rotisserie Romados which offers 1/4 of a
chicken."

This is entirely untrue. Even most illiterate peasants knew the basics of
fractional parts in the middle ages. 2.5 goats didn't make sense, but 2.5
stone of barley did. The church prohibited usury, but lending still happened,
so they had some knowledge of percentages as well. Despite the fall of Rome
and the horrible loss of knowledge that followed, math wasn't completely lost.
In 725, monks knew enough mathematics to predict the date of Easter (based on
the lunar cycle, mind you) years in advance. And math flourished in medieval
Islam.

Heck, if my memory serves, fractions were invented in Ancient Sumer, ~4000
years earlier.

"We can move a function f to the left by h units by subtracting h from x and
using that as the input argument: g(x) = f(x − h)."

This actually translates the function to the right. This is also where I
stopped reading.

I really want this to be good. I love finding wonderful new resources for
teaching mathematics. I'm sure you put a serious effort into the text. But I
fear your no bullshit guide is just going to scare the shit out of its
readers.

~~~
dalke
The Bible, for example, uses fractions. In Lev. 5:16 - "He must make
restitution for what he has failed to do in regard to the holy things, add a
fifth of the value to that and give it all to the priest, who will make
atonement for him with the ram as a guilt offering, and he will be forgiven."

But I'm with pflats' judgement. I see text like "Indeed, on computers systems
which don’t have a hardware multiplication circuit, every time you write ab
the computer will repeatedly add the number a for a total of b iterations."
and wonder first, won't the target audience be confused by "hardware
multiplication circuit", and second, is this actually true? I'm pretty sure
they use shift-and-add.

Or, there's a use of "=" to say that "a/b = ... = one bth of a" then on the
same page there's a triple bar "≡" used for the same thing. Will your target
audience understand the notation shift?

The language "It is worth clarifying what" and "It is interesting to note
that" and "We will now illustrate how the equations of kinematics are used to
solve physics problems" are part of the same stultifying language you complain
about. There's a bunch of places where you can simplify text like "the
expression 5×32 +13 is to be interpreted" to "the expression 5×32 +13 is
interpreted" -- the "to be" is useless. And the voice changes from "we get" to
"you get".

Why is x<sup>-1</sup> different from f<sup>-1</sup> ? That is, the first is
1/x and the second is the function inverse. As far as I see, you don't explain
that those "-1"s mean different things. Nor do you say that "f" is another
type of variable naming pattern, which describes a functions.

Suppose your student wants to actually do the Moroccan example as an
experiment. It will fail, because of air friction. Yet friction isn't brought
up here. Newton's laws are not intuitive, because we are used to a world which
is full of friction, and frictional forces aren't easy to describe. But the
text assumes that the clarity of Newton's laws will be self-apparent, even if
it doesn't match expectations.

The Moroccan example also uses "44.145[m]". Who measures their balcony height
down to the millimeter? The precision was chosen so the answer would be
exactly 3[s], but other examples aren't that fussy. In any case, the answer
should be 3.00". Significant figures are hard for students to understand, and
I don't see any guidance that a fall of 44 meters should not be answered
2.9950690022496134[s], even if that's what the computer gives.

Finally, good on you for using SI for the file size instead of base 2 __10
units. However, [Mb] is megabit, not megabyte. You should use [MB].

~~~
three14
Traditional Jewish sources would translate that as _25%_. It does say one-
fifth, but it's a fifth in the sense that you pay 125%, and 25% is one fifth
of what you pay. There have been shifts in a lot of mathematical concepts over
time and that's just one example. For instance, at some points in history
people did use fractions, but favored using one in the numerator - 3/5 would
have been expressed as 1/2 plus 1/10.

~~~
dalke
My goal was to find counter-examples to the phrase "The notion of 2.5 goats
didn’t make any sense to the people of those days. They would have been
totally confused by the menu at Rotisserie Romados which offers 1/4 of a
chicken."

~~~
three14
Sure, just nitpicking.

How about half a baby? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Solomon>

~~~
dalke
That would have been a perfect response! I can't believe I forgot about it.

------
crntaylor
I applaud the idea, but I think this book needs some serious work before it is
suitable for your intended audience.

For example, in Section 1.1 you explain how to go about solving the equation
x^2 - 4 = 45, a topic which (I would venture) most 16 year olds should be
comfortable with.

Then in Section 1.2 you, out of nowhere, introduce set-theoretical ideas and
notation. Even seemingly innocent notation like

    
    
        {0, 1, 2, 3, ...}
    

to denote the natural numbers can be confusing for someone who hasn't seen it
before. In this case it's clear that the dots are supposed to indicate
"continue in the obvious way". But then you write

    
    
        Q = { -1.5, 1/3, 22/7, 0.125, ... }
    

in which the dots, presumably, mean something different. Then, at the bottom
of the page, you suddenly start using the notation "∈" to denote set
membership, as in

    
    
        if x,y ∈ N, then (x+y) ∈ N.
    

First, what does this weird "∈" symbol mean? Second, what does it mean to
write "x,y ∈ N"? Is that x∈N and y∈N? Or is it some special object "x,y" that
is ∈N? Or is it two statements, "x" on its own, and "y∈N"?

The next couple of paragraphs contain both historical and mathematical
inaccuracies (can you _really_ always divide two rational numbers to get
another rational number?). I'll stop there.

Like I say, I applaud what you're trying to do. I think you have a noble aim.
But if the preview is anything to go by, your textbook in its current form is
falling short of that aim.

~~~
chris_wot
_can you really always divide two rational numbers to get another rational
number?_

I'll not give a formal proof, but intuitively the answer is surely "yes"!

~~~
Dove
Yes, and it's pretty easy to prove. Multiplying any rational number by the
inverse of another gives you a new rational number. (Zero doesn't have an
inverse).

A rational number is a number that can be represented as one integer divided
by another. Take two rational numbers, A = a/b, and B = c/d. If B has an
inverse, then A/B = a/b * d/c = ad/bc. ad and bc are both integers, so A/B is
rational.

~~~
crntaylor
My point was that you can only divide one rational by another to produce a new
rational _if the denominator is nonzero_.

This is not what it says in the book, so there's potential for a newbie to get
confused (and anyone reading the book in order to learn from it is, by
definition, a newbie).

~~~
Dove
Oh, then that seems like a pretty pedantic worry. You can't divide by zero in
any context; even children know that. It's such an obvious exception that it
didn't even occur to me that's what you thought was wrong with the statement.

------
mscarborough
I appreciate the goal and the bold tone. I volunteer time to tutor middle and
high school kids in math. It would be nice to have a fresh approach available,
and a hard copy or four would be nice.

Would it be possible to create a version without the 'bullshit' language?
Outside of the cover there are two 'bullshits' in the first chapter. It
doesn't bother me but I don't think the directors of my program or parents
would be very happy about it.

I'm sure the kids would like it but in a program such as ours, adding
unnecessary friction to the relationship with parents is not a good idea. The
older kids are spending time in our program that could be used to work jobs to
help support their family (and it is a real pressure on these kids and
families), so anything that threatens that is a non-starter.

~~~
mscarborough
Just to clarify and since the author is being cool and replying to individual
comments...

The reason I asked about a 'clean' version is this: we serve kids from
relatively low-income households. The goal is to increase high school
graduation rates and college attendance. This is a long-term goal that
conflicts with short-term needs. Often times it might be better to have a
13-17 year old boy or girl go to work with a family member, instead of
spending time being tutored or participating in athletics.

In this situation, I can't send a kid home with this book if they want to
check out the new approach. I love profanity and curse more than I should, but
there are certain situations and audiences where it's not appropriate. Perhaps
much of the audience for this book could use a cleaner approach.

Thanks and good luck!!

~~~
ivan_ah
I totally agree with you.

I am definitely going to do a cleaned up version with less attitude. I will
start by cleaning up the examples. The theory sections are mostly OK. Please
send me an email so I can keep you updated on that front.

~~~
shuaib
I hope you are going to keep the cleaned up version separate. Some of us (me
at least) would like the book in current form. :)

~~~
ivan_ah
Oh for sure ;)

For v4.0 of the book, I am thinking of making it customizable. Before you
order the book, you will be able to adjust the level of "attitude" with a
slider.

------
madhadron
I hesitated to post this, since I think clearer, shorter, better written
textbooks are an admirable goal, and I keep a (short) list of good text books
I have found over the years. But based on the preview on the website, I'm
going to keep referring those who ask me to Gelfand's wonderful basic math
texts instead (Algebra, Method of Coordinates, Functions and Their Graphs,
Trigonometry -- anyone who wants further pointers to these, private message
me).

There are also some howlers in the preview text, such as "after thinking very
hard the mathematicians were able to classify all the different number like
objects into sets" and then lists the naturals, integers, rationals, reals,
and complex numbers. Except that these are nested subsets of each other, not
disjoint, and the four normed division algebras are the reals, complexes
numbers, quaternions, and octionions, so if you're going to talk about all the
number like objects without including those last two, you're off the mark.

I haven't seen the physics sections, but I will say that teaching physics is
actually remarkably difficult. I tend to recommend 1960s editions of Halliday
and Resnick (not the recent ones!), though I will probably switch to
recommending Karl Wiemann's work (<http://c21.phas.ubc.ca/>).

I absolutely agree that mechanics and the differential and integral calculus
should be taught together, though. They don't make any sense without each
other.

~~~
cosmikduster
> I tend to recommend 1960s editions of Halliday and Resnick (not the recent
> ones!)

I'm curious why. I remember reading the second edition back in 1998. Recently,
I got one of the new editions (8th) but the new ones seem too verbose. What
went wrong?

~~~
madhadron
In textbook publishing, it's very important to put out a new edition every
year or two. Otherwise your sales will disappear, since everyone will buy the
book used. For a book like Halliday and Resnick that's been around since the
1960s, it doesn't take a very large number of people selling theirs to satisfy
the demand of all current physics students.

So you put out a new edition in which you shuffle all the exercises so that
students can't do their homework, and you have someone mess with the text and
the formatting to make it look like a real change. You add glossy pictures,
because you get a much bigger visual impact from changing the pictures than
from actually changing content.

For an old book, this is a problem because often the authors are dead or
retired, or think the book is just fine. Now you have to find someone who
would like his name added to a classic text who will sign off on the job.
Today it's Halliday, Resnick, and Crane. For Arfken's old mathematical methods
for physics text, it was Weber.

------
zainny
Personally looking forward to the ebook coming out! I was actually just this
morning going through and signing up to a bunch of mathematics related
Coursera courses. For those interested, quite a few are starting soon:

[Jan 7th] Calculus: Single Variable -
<https://www.coursera.org/course/calcsing>

[Jan 7th] Calculus One - <https://www.coursera.org/course/calc1>

[Jan 28th] Algebra - <https://www.coursera.org/course/algebra>

[Jan 28th] Pre-Calculus - <https://www.coursera.org/course/precalculus>

------
jackowayed
I would adjust the tone for the "I am in Arts" section. Saying "I think you
have math issues" is not the kind of welcome you want to give to people who
do, in fact, have math issues.

I like the end, where you emphasize that math is a great exercise in abstract
thinking and modeling. But I would start with something more neutral saying
something like, "Many people had suboptimal experiences with math in school
because it was often presented well, and some teaching styles don't work for
some people. And some may have just always found other things more
interesting. However, my goal with this book was to make math more accessible
and interesting to many people by presenting material in more a more intuitive
manner and emphasizing the core skills of abstract thinking and mathematical
modeling of the real world."

That's definitely not perfect, but it's something to start with. Try to
imagine that you're someone who never found math all that interesting and
always thought that literature or history or art was far more interesting and
meaningful, and that possibly you had some bad experiences with math and got
the idea that you're not good at it. Now try to imagine what might trigger
those bad feelings about math and turn you off to a book, versus what might
make you decide to give it a chance. If you don't trust your ability to
imagine this way, try to find a close friend who is in this situation and will
be honest with you.

~~~
mharmon14
I disagree. Looking at the title, & reading over the preview of the book, I
think that the concise, anti-politically correct tone the author uses is one
of his best selling points. After all the book is titled "no bullshit". And
there's already plenty of texts that use ostensibly comforting words to
artists.

~~~
jackowayed
There is a difference between being somewhat edgy and improper ("no bullshit")
and actively working against one's aims by including copy that is
confrontational and discouraging to the most insecure segment of one's
audience ("you have a math problem; you need therapy"). Those whom it does not
bother might appreciate this continuation of his tone, but it is horribly
damaging with the audience that it claims to target.

I have some experience encouraging groups who tend to be less sure of their
abilities in an academic subject to study that subject and am friends with
many people who are much more involved in these efforts, and I know that being
confrontational is counterproductive and that you have to be very careful
about how you suggest to them that they have a "problem", even if you are
telling them that they can overcome that problem. You want to stay positive
and show empathy toward their struggles, emphasizing that the struggles are
not any failing or inherent shortcoming on their part and are very common.

~~~
ivan_ah
Updated Arts section to:

PS: I know a lot of peo­ple who say that they ab­solutely hate math be­cause
they think, for some rea­son, that they are not good at it. You should
con­sider giv­ing math an­other try. Math is not just about al­ge­bra ...

I like the abrasive comment "you have issues", but it is better to stay
positive rather than point fingers. Everyone has issues ;)

------
iansinke
I would have to disagree with the general statement that "textbooks suck".
Stewart's calculus ("the violin book") is really a great textbook, and it's
used very widely. Serway Jewett is a superb Physics textbook. The examples, in
particular, are excellent (sometimes humorous or intriguing.)

Also, textbooks are long. But most courses don't use the entire textbook. I
took 3 math courses and 2 physics courses in first year using those two
textbooks and we didn't use every section, nor did we have to read every page.

I think having example problems which have stood the test of time (more than
20 years for those 2 textbooks, I think) is worthwhile.

~~~
andrewflnr
I'm taking the Serway and Jewett physics right now, and I actually hate it.
Their explanations of tricky concepts kind of suck. For example, it doesn't
even try to explain _why_ a hot gas is less ordered than a cool one (it's the
same amount of information, the same number of real numbers, right?). I only
got a vague understanding after scouring Wikipedia and later portions of the
chapter. Stewart is pretty decent though, AFAICT.

------
ivan_ah
Author here. Some comments before I go catch up on sleep.

1/ The response by the community was amazing. You guys are great! Especially
the ones who are nitpicking and fact checking me! I love it.
<http://cnd.mcgill.ca/~ivan/miniref/HN_wave_Jan1_Jan2.png>

2/ By popular demand, I created a PDF version of the book -- mostly changed
the font and added more space on each page. Preview is here:
<http://cnd.mcgill.ca/~ivan/miniref/noBSmath_preview.pdf> PDF is available on
gumroad: <http://gum.co/noBSmath>

3/ Will write up a detailed post about the experience later today here:
<http://minireference.com/blog/>

4/ The notation "∈" stands for "is an element of" and is covered later on in
the book. See <http://cnd.mcgill.ca/~ivan/miniref/set_notation.pdf> for more
info.

Thank you everyone for the feedback and the support.

~~~
ntaylor
@ivan_ah I just placed an order for a print copy, am I also entitled to a PDF
version?

~~~
ivan_ah
I am looking into how to bundle the two, but it isn't obvious since I use
lulu.com for the print version and gumroad for the PDF.

If you send me a proof of purchase of the print version (screenshot of lulu
receipt that shows your email), I would be glad to send you the PDF.

~~~
lsllc
Fantastic, I'll send you an email. Thanks!

------
rpm4321
I actually clicked "Buy Now" before I realized this was a physical textbook
and cancelled. To me, it's almost inexcusable to market this sort of text to
this type of audience and not have a digital copy.

Shouldn't the barriers to entry be much lower for the author to get this out
electronically?

I see that the author is responding to comments here, so if you're like me and
will buy it if it comes out electronically, please let him know in the
comments that he can count on your purchase.

~~~
ivan_ah
I have the PDF version ready and will setup a shopping cart (ejunkie?) very
soon (like tonight) because several people asked for this.

Reading math in print is really good: you can flip back and forth through the
pages.

How much should the PDF cost? 29$ sounds a bit steep for a PDF no?

~~~
rodh257
For reference have a look at the % price difference for other book sellers,
like O'Reilly: <http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596802363.do>

I'd be selling it for $24 for Ebook (and make it available in PDF/Epub/Mobi to
cover all readers), $29 for print, $32 for Print + Ebook.

~~~
phaus
Please listen to this guy's suggestion of making the price for both only
marginally higher than the price for the Print version alone. One of the
quickest ways to kill my interest in in purchasing a book is by expecting
someone to pay a non-trivial amount of money for a digital copy after they
just purchased a hard copy at full retail.

As far as pricing the ebook alone, I think it should be somewhere around 14.99
to 19.99.

If it helps, I am probably a good example of your target customer. I didn't
take my education seriously until I was out of high school for a few years,
and now I find myself trying to catch up with all of the stuff I should have
learned when I was younger.

~~~
TylerE
Why is it acceptable in 2013 to charge ANYTHING for a digital copy when also
buying the dead-tree?

~~~
oneandoneis2
If it were a one-off download, it probably wouldn't be. But I quite like the
system O'Reilly uses: $5 for an ebook if you own the dead-tree version,
because you can download it as many times as you like, in all different
formats, and they maintain it with errata updates etc. for life.

The lifetime ability to download the most-current version of a book in any
current format is, IMO, worth a few dollars more than a free but unmaintained
ebook in what may very easily become a legacy format within a few years.

------
anonymous987983
Here's a picture from the examples:

[http://minireference.com/miniref/lib/tpl/miniref/landings/im...](http://minireference.com/miniref/lib/tpl/miniref/landings/images/download-
plot-annotated-derivative.png)

I'm not a big fan of that picture. We're trying to compute f'(400), judging by
the text (scroll down a bit on the first page). What the image suggests,
afaict, is that f'(400) that can be computed as the limit [f(x+h) - f(x-h)]/2h
with x=400 and h -> 0 (in the picture, we see the case h=80). At least the
graphic appears to connect the two somehow.

Nothing to that effect is mentioned in the text... just the cookbook recipe
'at^n becomes ant^{n-1}'. So why is there even a triangle here? Two things are
fishy here. The limit and the triangle.

The limit: Taking the aforementioned limit for the derivative is rather weird.
If the function is differentiable, you'll get the right result, namely f'(x).
If you consider the limit for the function x -> |x| at x=0 e.g., you'll get a
limit as well, even though that function is not differentiable.

The triangle: I would expect it to connect the three points [x-h,f(x-h)],
[x+h,f(x-h)], [x+h,f(x+h)]. Instead, we get three points whose X-coordinates
match the ones I mentioned with Y-coordinates that are chosen to have the
slope of the triangle match the slope of the function. Why? (If this were
about the mean-value theorem... but it's not!)

So what I'm left with is a plot with a triangle, no text that explains any of
that, and nothing I can make of it myself.

~~~
ivan_ah
> I'm not a big fan of that picture. We're > trying to compute f'(400), >

Well, technically speaking, you are not supposed to talk about derivatives in
the picture answer. I am just trying to connect the notion of "download rate"
with the "slope of the file size function".

The triangle with the hypotenuse touching the function (tangent line) is a way
to compute the slope from the graph. As such the actual size of the triangle
is not important -- so long as it helps you compute the rise-over-run.

So to answer your question -- the triangle is not meant to illustrate the
derivative calculation. Indeed, it would be quite difficult to show an
infinitely small triangle ;)

------
return0
The pitch "textbooks suck" seems so disrespectful and tasteless, it literally
makes me avoid that book. Most of my uni textbooks did not suck at all.

~~~
danielford
I teach college biology, and I've never seen a textbook in my discipline that
wasn't written in a soporific and meandering style. Some are worse than
others, but I've never seen a textbook I thought was good.

If I needed to fill a gap in my knowledge or learn a new subject I would never
resort to a textbook until I had exhausted every other available option.

~~~
eigenvector
That may well be true in your discipline, but there are some excellent,
concise texts in undergraduate mathematics. For example, Apostol's Calculus or
Spivak's Calculus on Manifolds. Not the most accessible texts by a longshot,
but not your average Pearson or Wiley drivel either.

~~~
rckrd
Adding on to eigenvector's point, there's a certain beauty in a self-contained
mathematics textbook.

~~~
catshirt
likewise, the explanation for how the concepts flow together. drawing these
connections is usually the last step for me in the "a-ha" moment, and too few
resources explain the connections between concepts really well. khan academy
being a strong exception.

------
aoldoni
About the conceptual map in the website (
[http://minireference.com/miniref/lib/tpl/miniref/landings/im...](http://minireference.com/miniref/lib/tpl/miniref/landings/images/concept_map_light.png)
) - Does anyone please know a similar map for CS concepts?

Thanks!

------
halo
The website isn't readable in IE9.

~~~
mansoor-s
<http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/>

<https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/>

~~~
andrewflnr
I'm sure halo knows there are other browsers. Remarking that a website is
unreadable in a widely-used browser is a legitimate comment that doesn't
deserve snark.

~~~
ivan_ah
Agreed.

The getElementById got me! Will jQuerify that ASAP.

------
edgeman27
I don't think that there is a need for the liberal use of swearing in a
mathematics book ("shit" appears 5 times in your sample PDF alone, two of
which are in the title). In my opinion, it makes it sound very amateur and
unprofessional.

> "Check this shit out:"

Could be "Consider this example:"

> Now get ready for some crazy shit. Using your...

Now for something even more interesting. Using your...

~~~
ivan_ah
> that there is a need for the liberal use of swearing in a mathematics book

You are right that there is no //need//, but I find that a little swearing
goes a long way to make the student who is scared of the subject feel more
comfortable. "This is not a math book", they will think -- this is informal
narrative like a blog post.

A cleaned up version is in the works. ETA March because I have to finish
Linear Algebra and E&M first.

------
smortaz
random idea - consider making some examples/sections from the book also
available as an IPython notebook. IPython+matplotlib+numpy+scipy is a perfect
quartet for getting some ideas across in an interactive, intuitive way. best
of all the reader doesnt have to setup anything. just include some URLs in
your book.

see: <http://ipython.org>

~~~
boothead
Yes! I've been away from math for so long that having code that translates the
math notation would be really helpful!

------
v-yadli
Why this is on Hacker News, while the download rate in his example would
follow f(t)=k\cdot t^2? Mine only follows f(t)=C+k\cdot rand().

We need better, deeper, broader understanding of math and physics. This _fast
food_ -styled stuff is really not for us. Why? Think you're going into
approximated algorithms without knowing the wonderful essentials of constant
e? Think you're going into pattern recognition without a throughout
understanding of linear/quadratic/etc systems?

A thick textbook only to charge you $150? That sounds like "6-pack abs the
quick way" advertisement... XD

Guys! Please stop joking!

~~~
andrewflnr

      A thick textbook only to charge you $150? That sounds
      like "6-pack abs the quick way" advertisement... XD
    

Have you been to college recently? I'm in college right now, and I absolutely
believe it. Maybe it's not quite that simple, but only because the publishers
are being slightly more devious. College textbooks are a racket.

~~~
v-yadli
I received my undergrad education in China. We've got some really good math
textbooks, and they're very cheap. Yes I know textbooks in English are very
expensive. But during my PhD education I mainly rely on free resources. (For
example, Vazirani has written some very comprehensive materials about math and
algorithms, search for it. If I don't remember it wrong, somebody posted his
algorithm book a month ago on HN)

On the other hand, for what purpose would you like to choose a book that you
call "racket"? If forced by your school, then it's done, no choice. If it's
your willpower to learn something, why don't do some mining and research first
before diving into a pile of junk? :-)

~~~
andrewflnr
I actually got away without the book for my first semester of physics, but
basically yes, it's forced by the school. That's why they can get away with a
racket.

------
boothead
Ivan, could you share a little about your toolchain writing this book? There's
been a lot of traffic on HN around self publishing and I think it would be of
interest.

P.S. I'll buy it in ebook form!

~~~
ivan_ah
OK, so I have a blog post in the works but since that is taking too long I
will say a few words here briefly. Basically I use:

    
    
        dokuwiki | dokutexit | sed (cleanup) | pdflatex
    

DokuWiki is a file-system based wiki which I run on localhost. Each section is
one .txt file. To generate the book I made a master file which includes all
necessary sections. The plugin dokutexit then produces the .tex output.
Dokutexit does a good job, but I still there is some cleanup necessary (via
sed). I also do some manual touchups by adding the front matter / back matter
stuff (via \input{subfile.tex}) and then pdflatex does its magic.

The latex document class is extbook -- the regular book class does not have
the 9pt option.

@READERS Sorry for inflicting upon you the 9pt font. I know it is tiny, but
look at how small and portable the book is now ;)

____

I am still researching how to generate .epub and .mobi form latex files. If
anyone has pointers to articles which discuss this, I would be very interested
to hear. PM me, or post them here so that everyone can learn. (plasTeX?
MathJax? MathML?)

------
cameronh90
I would buy it, but it appears you don't have an ebook version? I can't really
keep physical books because they take up too much space (small apartment).

~~~
ivan_ah
@cameronh90 @veeti @Who828 I hear you guys.

I will have the PDF version ready by later tonight. How much should the PDF
cost? Is a DRM-free PDF good enough or should I do the .epub format?

(in the meantime, check out the free preview:
<http://cnd.mcgill.ca/~ivan/miniref/miniref_v3_preview.pdf> about one third of
the book is there)

~~~
cameronh90
An ebook being cheaper isn't a big deal for me, since my view is the price
more to do with the content than the format. For other people it does seem to
be more significant though. Maybe it should be the price of the physical book
less the costs of printing/binding/etc. such that you get the same amount of
money in the pocket at the end? (I don't know if that's how it works, having
never published a book!)

PDF is good for PC viewing and will work on pretty much everything, though
EPUB and Kindle formats will make things better on e-readers and
phones/tablets since they support re-flowable content, but I guess would
probably require more work on your part to support.

------
cabalamat
On page 126 it is implied that if a person collides with two objects, the
object with the most momentum will do that person the most harm.

This is nonsense. I am likely to survive being hit by a car at 10 mph, but I
will certainly be killed if I'm hit by a 1 kg projectile travelling at 2000
m/s, even though it has less than half the momentum.

------
actsasbuffoon
Sounds like a fascinating book. I'll be purchasing it as soon as the ebook is
available.

Note: I didn't even know this book existed ten minutes ago, but now I'm
annoyed that I have to wait until tomorrow for the ebook version. Sometimes my
demand for instant gratification shocks even me.

------
ambiate
I was just discussing writing this same exact book for/with my wife.
Se^(2^(x))^e does not interest her. The standard in my past has been
mathematics books that use equations that do not/rarely occur in nature. The
concepts are priceless, but the problems/solutions do not use common integers.

Breaking a problem down six times to actually start applying the principle I
am learning is my largest downfall. It makes me lose interest in the subject
at hand. I would rather understand and be able to reference the concepts.

Like many others, an ebook would be more delightful. Yet, I may buy the
paperback this weekend.

------
KoulMomo
Congrats on getting your book published Ivan! Starting the New Year right by
being at the top of HN.

Did you end up giving Jarryd an editor credit?

I wish you continued success.

------
swatkat
Nice! I'd buy ebook when it's out. BTW, I also recommend "The Joy of x: A
Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity"
(<http://www.stevenstrogatz.com/the_joy_of_x.html>). This amazing book
rekindled my interest in Mathematics. Now, I've got a couple of math books in
my 'to-read' list.

------
sonabinu
This is pretty interesting stuff. Out of curiosity, have you thought of an
interactive book? It brings higher level concepts alive.

~~~
ivan_ah
I am a big fan of "choose your own adventure" kind of books, and I will try to
do something with that soon.

For the physics part, I also have a simple physics game engine which is in the
works. Instead of answering questions about different //points// of the motion
the user would have to specify the js function which describes the entire
motion. There will be not "grades" just test suites your code has to pass ;)

What do you have in mind exactly when you say "interactive book"?

~~~
sonabinu
I was thinking of graphs and equations where you could test different values,
see how the outcome varies. When you learn with a graphic/equation you can
manipulate, the experience stays with you

------
eliben
While I applaud the self-publishing, promising to teach "all of math and
physics" in two weeks is preposterous at best.

------
richardofyork
If you make this promising book available in eBook format you are guaranteed
at least a few sales from HN readers, and indeed very likely from many other
readers who prefer digital books over paper books.

I would advise that you make the digital copy of the book available as soon as
possible—I am an interested buyer as well.

------
tsurantino
Based on the comments I've read and reading a bit of the preview - I am
curious as to how polished this version is. I'm hesitant in buying the
paperback copy especially, if there are errors.

Otherwise, this looks incredible. Exactly what I've wanted when wanting to
learn math!

~~~
ivan_ah
This is the third iteration of the book, so I think I have gotten the typos-
per-page down to an almost non-existant level. I am sure there are some left,
but it is definitely not a first draft.

~~~
bockris
FYI. the top of the page number 4 ...addition an subtraction... you are
missing a 'd'

------
j2kun
From the example it looks like he doesn't connect the graphical answer to the
calculus answer or to the obvious answer. I really hope he actually explains
it in the book, because physicists are notoriously bad at being mathematically
correct.

~~~
ivan_ah
Thx for the feedback. I am just added the following paragraph to clarify.

It is important to see the connections between the three different ways of
finding the answer: the intuitive notion of download speed that we are all
familiar with, the graphical notion of slope and the more abstract calculus
notion of function derivative.

~~~
j2kun
I meant that I hope you explain elsewhere in the book _why_ these notions are
related. Too often in physics people just accept how things work out without
understanding why mathematically. For instance, the whole point of introducing
limits is to make the "obvious/graphical" answer of "download speed" rigorous,
but students rarely make that connection regardless of how many times the
professor or textbook reiterates it (most likely because they don't read the
textbook or go to class to begin with).

Do you in your book mention that calculating the exact download speed is
impossible (and why this is the case)? Do you mention that the download speed
one sees in their web browser is an approximation via a limit? These are the
kind of important connections that get lost in the bullshit and the
calculations.

------
eranki
Only read a few pages, but I would eliminate a lot of the introductory
formalism. Most people don't need to be confused by the different sets of
numbers, or common uses of variable names, or how to alter the shape of
functions.

------
dimitar
The book seems to be very comfortable to read on e-ink reader. I'm going to
try the preview on the kindle 4.

BTW, what does the preview include? It seems to have just random sections of
the book.

------
chris_wot
Your concept map has a typo...

<http://cnd.mcgill.ca/~ivan/miniref/mech_in_7_pages.pdf>

Page 8 - it reads "manitupation".

------
RobKohr
Ok, there seems to be plenty of issues stated about this book, and I am going
to guess that there are excellent alternatives to this book.

Anyone want to suggest some?

------
sonabinu
The concept map is fantastic!

~~~
mrb
Agreed! I am pleasantly surprised that someone else is doing this! I have been
drawing "concept maps" for myself for the knowledge they taught in high school
and undergrad school. I have always thought I was the only one to draw such
things :) I am a very visual person and these maps help me memorize stuff but
also understand how everything fits together.

~~~
sonabinu
That is great to hear. I use it for understanding concepts when learning. It
is a great tool. Have you tried <http://www.instagrok.com>

~~~
mrb
I did not know it. It would be nice if one could travel through graphs by just
clicking on nodes, expanding other neighboring nodes, etc. Too bad it seems to
only allow browsing up to 2 nodes away from the central node...

------
jpwagner
formal notation and esoteric naming conventions is _exactly_ the bullshit i
was expecting to be left out. i'm not sure this will actually work for the
audience it was intended for.

------
gdi2290
there is a free draft copy online if you search the name if you want to check
out what the books like before your purchase

------
nnq
...why would anyone use/recommend this over the Khan Academy resources?

~~~
nnq
why the downvote? I was just hoping to hear the opinion of someone who took a
good look at both

------
zerooneinfinity
OK cool but, Khan Academy.

~~~
chris_wot
Not everyone works well with Khan Academy, incredibly awesome though it is. A
textbook is actually my preferred method of learning.

------
downrightmike
Math;DR

------
wjgeorge
but pretty much a bullshit ad

