Comments on: Serge Lang and his books

By: Ars Mathematica » Blog Archive » Open Thread

Ars Mathematica » Blog Archive » Open Thread — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 19:23:48 +0000

[...] thread for anyone who has anything on their mind while I find an alternative. Michael Costantini asked in this old thread if anyone was interested in talking about Serge Lang. Michael knew him back in the [...]

By: John Armstrong

John Armstrong — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 15:03:19 +0000

It’s rather an old post to bump, but what about him?

By: michael costantini

michael costantini — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 14:31:22 +0000

Hello,
I was a good friend of Serge in the early 1970s when he would travel to California for seminars at Stanford. I took the photo on the cover of one of his books; a dandelion in orange tones. I was 15 at the time.
I would like to communicate with someone about Serge.
Michael

By: vlorbik

vlorbik — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 22:06:56 +0000

i also found lang’s _algebra_ useless as a first-year student.

but forget the blue million *math* books: lang was a national treasure
for his amazingly persistent debunkings of bureaucratic b.s.
(in and out of the academy — but especially “in”).

here’s my review of _challenges_:
http://members.aol.com/vlorbik/tenpage/lang.html

By: michael

michael — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 16:52:04 +0000

I hate this book with a passion. The purpose of a textbook is the imparting of knowledge. If you learned mathematics in a vacuum (or even perhaps in the vaccum milieu of Lang books) then fine, but if you already know some math (and what everyone else calls things) then this book useless. (Hey thanks Serge, your index is pointless)

By: Megan

Megan — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 05:48:52 +0000

I seem to recall an orange book by Lang entitled Algebra. The book was a little tattered, the binding falling apart and the pages a little loose. I also remember complaining quite a bit about this book. Lang had a tendency to rename things like integral domain. In fact, I half-joked he tried to rename multiplication. For that reason, I hated Lang’s books. I am sad that he died though.