ChapterZero

I just checked to see how much money I had in my school account, and realized I have enough to absorb the price of one quality math book. Since I’ve been getting back into computer algebra, and I’m reading Algorithms for Computer Algebra by Geddes, Czapor, and Labahn, I looked it up— guess how much that medium-sized book, with poor quality typsetting costs?

More than $100! In fact, most of the results I got back (abebooks) were over $300! What is up with that? I also looked up a really comprehensive general algebra book– I mean, read it and understand it, and you’ll know more than enough algebra for any non-algebraic discipline– Advanced Modern Algebra by Rotman, and it costs under $70. Rotman’s book is larger, has a more beautiful cover, is beautifully typeset, and covers way more material than Geddes, et. al. Yet it costs much less.

The only reason I can think of for this is the absolute dearth of good introductory level texts on computer algebra. After reading Geddes, et. al., I feel like I’ll be able to go out and code up a better CAS than say, Yacas. It is about the only resource for this purpose I came across worth mentioning, and from what I’ve seen, is heavily cited. Sad that it came out in 1992 and still has no competition worth mentioning. Apparently the publishers realize this. Someone should write a free book on computer algebra, so people like myself don’t have to dish out money we don’t have.

So, I won’t be buying any math books this season.

Possibly relevant posts:

• Progress Report (1/12/2004)
• Catching up (8/20/2003)
• Pythonica (5/19/2005)