Applied Mathematicians write the best books
I started thinking that applied mathematicians write the best books at some point in the past. Not numerical mathematics books, which I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole, but the good ‘ol analysis books. I guess this is only to be expected: I’m one of those who think math is much more interesting when it has a purpose. Especially when the purpose is more of an abstraction, because then you cover the theoretical material, and just mention the optimizations and heuristics that algorithms which apply the theory might use. I have avoided reading about FFTs, for instance, because I could care less about how they’re implemented: the equivalence to the DFT is all I care about.
All of this was motivated by a book I just saw in my advisor’s office, that I could have sworn wasn’t there before this week: Mathematics of Medical Imaging. It looks like a relatively light read, compared to what say a Springer book with the same name would be like (viz., an encyclopedic tome). Unfortunately, our library doesn’t carry it: I’ve noticed our imaging books tend to be old and hoary; maybe there was some disillusionment about that discipline that affected the acquisitors? So, I ordered it via interlibrary loan. I hope I’ll still be as excited about it when it finally arrives.