
A Collector of Math and Physics Surprises - bainsfather
https://www.quantamagazine.org/tadashi-tokieda-collects-math-and-physics-surprises-20181127/
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Jun8
"I needed a biography of somebody, so I went to the library. Unfortunately,
the biography was not where it was supposed to be, but next to the spot was a
biography of Lev Davidovich Landau."

This is why we have and should continue to keep (physical) libraries and why I
love visiting them (along with second-hand bookshops and large scales used
book sales). I discovered and bought probably 80+% of my books in this
serendipitous way, king to the usual example of chaos in kneading of dough
([https://books.google.com/books?id=GvnxBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA148&lpg=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=GvnxBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA148&lpg=PA148&dq=chaos+dough+kneading&source=bl&ots=sCmINvo4rN&sig=0JKs_1cJVt2fxbbfsMMsGlgq6Ic&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwicsprCk4TfAhVKF6wKHVQwDsIQ6AEwB3oECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=chaos%20dough%20kneading&f=false))

~~~
byproxy
Couldn't agree more. I happened upon an Annie Dillard book ("For the Time
Being") at the last day of a HalfPrice Books moving sale. I'd never heard of
her before, but I randomly picked it up, flipped through a few pages, and
decided that I'd really enjoy it. Sure enough, it resonated with me and led me
to her other works, which are equally - if not, more - compelling.

So, I discovered one of my favorite writers because there was a bunch of books
before me and I decided to pick one up.

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Isamu
>Landau said, in the biography, “Don’t waste your time on mathematicians and
lectures and so on — instead, find a book with the largest number of solved
exercises and go through them all. That’s how you learn mathematics.”

Posting this because of a recent HN discussion touching on this. It really
resonates with me because I feel that was key when I was learning calculus. I
would like to see a lot more books with solutions.

The struggle you go through trying to understand your mistakes and correcting
yourself is really the crux of learning.

~~~
TheTrotters
I really wish someone would create a series of problem sets based on
math.stackexchange. Many problems have multiple solutions and useful
discussion in comments as well. The challenge is to curate their content.

Ideally such problem sets would accompany a specific textbook. It’s seems like
such a simple idea that somebody should have done it already but I wasn’t able
to find anything.

~~~
iaw
Serious question: Any idea what the licensing for such an endeavor would look
like? My guess would be Stack Exchange 'owns' the content but I don't have
time atm to read their ToS.

~~~
gowld
If your question is serious, why can't you be bothered to visit the site and
look, instead of waiting for someone to read it to you?

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bainsfather
This is a lovely sketch of someone whose path had been artist -> linguist ->
mathematician <-> physicist, and is apparently good at all of them. Learning
maths because he went to the wrong section of the library, etc.

Also, his demonstrations on youtube are great.

~~~
AndrewOMartin
Case in point, making Kendama look like the most natural thing in the world.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkGawXjsltc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkGawXjsltc)

~~~
TimesOldRoman
Aww man that was great. Thanks for sharing.

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kurosawa
Inspiring.

Anyone know any problem-books that could match the (implied) breadth of the
one indicated?

"I went back to the library and found the mathematics book with the largest
number of problems. The book was in Russian, and I didn’t know Russian, but a
young linguist is not afraid to pick up another language."

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zem
if you like that sort of thing, i highly recommend jearl walker's "the flying
circus of physics"
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471762733](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471762733)

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iaw
Best collection of his work I could find.

[http://www.msri.org/web/msri/public/tadashis-
toys](http://www.msri.org/web/msri/public/tadashis-toys)

I'm a bit dumbfounded by his level of intelligence.

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pgtan
recently enjoyed
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkfDYOZ1p4Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkfDYOZ1p4Y)

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jlg23
How bad a title for such a gem.

The unpretentious attitude towards science reminds me of Feynman. I wish there
were more people in education like them.

