Open Thread
July 4th, 2007 by WaltMy computer has met a horrible fate, which is making it hard to update the site. I’m creating this open 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 70s.
(My computer was a laptop. Every laptop I’ve ever owned breaks in the same way — the power supply stops working. Does this happen to anyone else? Do I generate my own magnetic field, like Magneto, and that’s why my laptops break? How does Magneto websurf? I guess he has no other outlet for his energies than supervillainy.)
July 4th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
As a professional Mathematician, deeply respectful of Serge Lang, and who is currently a volunteer in the trenches with impovershed high school students, I wonder if someone who knows can defend Serge Lang against this curious attack on the web:
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1311621
Serge Lang is an a**h*** mathematician who “writes” (I use the term loosely) textbooks for various branches of mathematics. His texts include “MATH! Encounters with High School Students,” “The Beauty of Doing mathematics,” “Geometry. A High School Course,” “Basic Mathematics,” “A First Course in Calculus,” “Calculus of Several Variables,” “Introduction to Linear Algebra,” “Linear Algebra,” “Undergraduate Algebra,” “Undergraduate Analysis,” “Complex Analysis,” and “Real and Functional Analysis.”
I hold a deep respect for anyone with the patience and knowledge to write a textbook; especially a textbook for a math course. It would seem to me to be a rather cumbersome task. Serge Lang however, did it in one weekend. And then bragged about it. Yes, my friends, he wrote a book in one weekend. Yes, it is blatantly obvious that he has done so.
He is not favoured amoung textbook authors (at least not at SRC), one of the reasons why is his highly condescending writing. “Paper should also be required to be neat and legible. They should not look as if a stoned fly has just crawled out of an inkwell,” to quote his introduction. He also explain that “The truth of mathematical statement is invariant under permutations of the alphabet,” which, though granted it is true, he uses this fact to rather much mindf*** the students unfortunate enough to have to learn from his texts. Midway through his exercises he establishes that “to break the monotony of the letter x, (we will) use another..” His new letter choice is t, which I whole heartedly believe his chose on the basis of similarity between the letter t and a plus sign.
In addition he has also invented a fairly infamous function schmoo which is equal to 1/(x+ sin(x)). This also happens to be the derivative of cow(x). He has also managed, in the FIFTH revision of his textbook, to continually misspell the name of Allen Altman, a professor at SRC, who, in addition to sending in large lists of corrections to the text book, was also his advisee for his doctorate.
July 4th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
‘I guess he has no other outlet for his energies than supervillainy’
You forget- he plays chess.
Cool powers though!
July 4th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Oh yes laptops break indeed! It’s horrible, since they cost somewhat more than desktops, and personally I’d hate having to conatrain myself to desktops.
For the past 5 years I’ve witnessed 16 laptops malfunction, making them impossible to use. Problems ranging from batteries dying and screens to loose connection with the computer to hard drives making weird noises and not accessing all data or simply parts on the chipset coming loose. It’s been even among most computer brands and just seem like something one should expect.
I’ve personally lost 2 of the 16 laptops, and I’m sure it’s _only_ 2 because I’m a geek who put down quite some time actively making sure my computer stays operational.
I’ve also noticed that basically the larger the laptop the longer the period ‘purchase->failure’ seem to be.
Are there to many constraints to due to space when designing them? Do all the parts maybe effect eachother when they are put so close to eachother? Are we just not careful enough when it comes to things like transportation or placement? Or do the makers just expect us to live with poorer standard than in tower-computers since tower-users generally are copmuter geeks who are used to fiddling with these electronics whilst laptop-users generally just use them?
July 4th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
> For the past 5 years I’ve witnessed 16 laptops malfunction, making them impossible to use.
Sounds impressive, but the mathematician in me would like to know how many you’ve seen not malfunction.
Anyway…in an attempt to build a statistically significant sample: For personal use I’ve primarily used a laptop for 10 years or so - that’s 4 laptops. Only one failed, and that was shortly after the time I opened it up to see what it looked like inside…
July 4th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
What are you complaining about with your newfangled laptops? My problem is that I’ve lost most of the decks of punchcards that I used on my school’s IBM 1130 starting in 1966-1967. It was the first American transistorized mainframe. Ran Fortran IV. Came in two models: one with 4K of memory, one with 8K. Most customers asked: who could possibly use 8K?
July 4th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Yeah, sounds like just the sort of thing Serge would do/say.
Seriously, guy could be a bit of a d*ck.
July 5th, 2007 at 8:09 am
Is Langs Algebra a good book? I just got it in the mail and I´m going to use it to brush up on my algebra before I start graduate school. I´ve heard that he uses his own private nomenclature, is that something I´ll have any problems with?
thanks
July 5th, 2007 at 9:50 am
I’m in a similar situation (going to start graduate school in the fall), and I’m also using Lang’s Algebra to review algebra. I think for our purposes it’s a fantastic book for two reasons: 1) his treatment is really nice and concise; 2) he has lots of interesting examples from all over mathematics that makes reading it less boring than reading most other algebra books would be.
But if you want to learn algebra for the first time, I’d recommend a different book (probably Dummit and Foote).
July 6th, 2007 at 9:02 am
If you don’t want to learn algebra for the first time, or review it, but insted seeing how algebra fits into the bigger picture of mathematics, I would recommend Shafarevich’s “Basic notions of algebra”.
July 6th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
> Sounds impressive, but the mathematician in me would like to know how many you’ve seen not malfunction.
You’re right.
For perspective, these 16 computers have been among 6 people. This is basically family and close friends who uses laptops, and myself. And at the moment, among these people, I’ve seen 3 laptops that haven’t malfunctioned, and I want to say “yet”. The other 3 people have had their current laptops sent away for repairs at some point after purchase.
Personally I’m at my 3rd laptop, I bought it after my 2nd became unusable.
Your experience leaves me thinking me and the laptop-users around me might just be a bit clumsier or less careful than other users.
July 8th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
> Your experience leaves me thinking me and the laptop-users around me might just be a bit clumsier or less careful than other users
I treat my laptops pretty respectfully (I no longer open them up).
Actually, I just realised there was another laptop I owned for just a few weeks. It failed, and due to the manufacturer, Acer, employing evil blood sucking undead people in technical support, they managed to engineer things so that I ended up paying for a repair that should have been under warranty. Luckily the retailer had some principles and took the accursed thing back off my hands.
(I’m sorry, that was probably offensive. I’m sure vampires are much nicer people than Acer customer service staff.)
July 9th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
to Grétar Amazeen:
Oh dear god no. Walt may be able to elucidate my own private war with Lang…Certainly Megan can. If you haven’t already gone all the way through a book like Dummit and Foote, then I think reading Lang is a TERRIBLE mistake. Textbooks should be written to impart information…not to occlude it.
July 9th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
[...] comments, Grétar Amazeen asks: Is Langs Algebra a good book? I just got it in the mail and I´m going to [...]