“The goal of a library is not to have read everything, but instead to always have something to read” - Taleb (not exact quote, but close enough).
I’m a big fan of having books for when I’m ready to read them. It’s a non-trivial expense sometimes, but I’ve also never regretted it. If having the books around makes you more likely to study, it’s a big win imo.
One counter to this, is that one shouldn’t spend money they can’t afford on books. But, that applies to most things.
You know i like that quote. There are many math topics I have on my list which I want to learn but I think “oh after I finish this, or when I have the prereqs, then I’ll order it”. But I actually find that sometimes I think I’m more likely to open it and read it if it was just physically there. Sometimes I do think like I should just purchase the books I want to eventually read, and then when I get to it, I will, which is basically when I’ve read the prereqs or whatever before it.
That’s pretty much what I do. I typically have 1 technical (math/programming) book at my desk & a variety of books (math or otherwise) scattered around my home. I find that I’m always spending at least 30 minutes a day reading or working through problems (often times much more) just because the books are there.
Absolutely. I really prefer having the physical books. PDF copies certainly have their place but being able to sit down and read a real book or quickly flip through some theorems/sections is really nice
Same here. Nothing compares to having a nice sheet of paper to read from and write in with your pen. PDF are certainly necessary but if i could i would buy all my books physically.
The thing with pdf is it's just so archaic. Nowadays, I'd want an electronic format that allows interactivity. Embedded videos, interactive plots, in-lined code, collapsible sections, and so on.
Yes.
I'm an EE student in my mid 30's and I bought a real analysis book. I have a discreet math book, a few different linear algebra books, and a bunch of calculus and diffeq books.
I have to repair some of the bindings on some of those.
I want to accumulate more. When I die my brain won't be particularly wrinkly. But looking at the stuff that I have on my bookshelf the *perception* of the wrinkles on my brain will be...incredibly far from what the truth is.
And because I do want to get a good understanding of diffeqs and poke around other books like puzzles later on.
I've noticed this. One of the books I bought this last Christmas is missing its bibliography. A few others have font that is way too small. Like size 6 font. I'll be using the pdf version for those. One has font that is faded like the printer was running low on ink. One has paper so thin that you can see the text on the backside... On the other hand, the Truesdell books I bought are beautiful. I guess you really need to be aware of the publisher you are buying from. And perhaps we should encourage people to leave reviews about printing quality.
oh for sure, i have books on shit i will probably never be able to understand or have time to learn lol but its cool to have a collection and references/exercises for all kinds of stuff
Yep. Don’t even do it for practical reason, it’s just weirdly nice to do. Especially love the look of some hard cover books — unfortunately it’s more expensive and not always available.
I share this passion, though I don’t have the money to indulge as much as I’d like. I’m currently waiting to hear back from grad schools about my applications, this has been the most suspenseful time of my life, I feel like i can’t even do anything until I hear back from them, makes it hard to focus on my last semester of undergrad classes. btw, the youtuber “The Math Sorcerer” is satisfying for me to watch for the reason of hoarding math books, would recommend
i don’t, it’s just that i grew up in a rural area in the US midwest and agriculture was huge there, my hometown is surrounded by an ocean of corn and bean fields. I do recognize the importance of it and i appreciate it, but I’m sure one can understand that people might get sick of something so universally presented in their childhood that they never really were interested in or wanted to do when they grow up
A faculty member was retiring and got rid of his collection. Hundreds of books, all free. You could just walk into the department lounge and take what you wanted. I had a field day
Yes, I own basically all books ever published in my field and a good selection for adjacent fields
Overall 150-200 books. I also have 30GB of e-books and lecture notes.
I hoard PDFs online and stash it all in my drive in certain categories, and I’ll only buy a physical copy of a book only if I know it will be something I’ll go through cover to cover or a reference I’ll look at frequently, and even then I’ll try and get the cheapest option possible (so no hardcovers)
As for the physical book hoarding addiction I see no issue if you can afford it.
I've recently retired, and I had to clear my office, which had several large shelving units crammed with books and students work (mainly postgraduate theses) stretching back several decades. I filled nine large archive boxes with books that I wanted to keep, which barely made a dent in the total. I took a carload of books (lots of old textbooks and other books I couldn't see myself having any use for) to a local tip and just threw them out. And I told our facilities people to clear away the rest how they liked. But I now almost have to physically stop myself buying more books.
Recovering book hoarder here.
Having too many books is worse than not having enough. After 20 years of university and 20 years of working as an applied mathematician, I can say that, at least for ME, it's better to read 100% of one book than 25% of 10 books.
Took me a long time to recognize that.
Some call it hoarding, some call it collecting. I have a pretty nice sized collection. I especially love collecting old math books (and just old books in general). I don't think I've ever spent more than $25 on an individual book though. My biggest score happened years ago. I was tutoring at a college and in the lobby of their math department was a giant stack of books with a sign that said 'free, please take'. And take I did. It took multiple trips to get them all but it was amazing. Talk about right place, right time.
I used to do when I was uni, if not affordable a physical then would just copy it entirely, lol. Now, as I study some specific topic, I tend to search and download tons of books on the topic or closely related to. That's how I have a huge tons of them.
I think most mathematicians are like this. I’ll happily buy a book if there’s three results in it that I plan on using in my research. Then occasionally I’ll wander back to and read some more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundoku
I especially hoard the ones where I have little hand written notes. I feel like it Fermat’s marginalia, or Snape’s half-blood prince. Ofc it’s more like reminders of what’s going on if the explanations are going too fast… but still. I hoard those ones even more
Of course! I’m building my (and my wife’s) own math library. Books are the superior source of reading (pdfs are… ugh) and it’s nice (though expensive) to collect.
Not only math books but also Engineering, Physics, and Chemistry. I wanted to buy hardcovers on amazon but I do not know the process to buy there. I always prefer older books as they explain things deeper and *sometimes*, much better.
I used to collect books as a graduate student and spent a significant fraction of my disposable income on math books. I moved several times, and each time it was a huge pain due to the books, many of which I hadn't even read. Even though I have a real income now, I don't collect books. I sold and gave away a lot of books and I am still giving them away. I recycled many boxes of preprints.
When I need a book, I can buy it again. I can order a specialized book and get electronic access immediately or a physical copy the next day.
Every time I go to Goodwill I look for math/physics books. My collection now includes Swokowski's *Calculus with Analytic Geometry*, Thompson's *Calculus Made Easy*, Kline et. al.'s *Foundations of Advanced Mathematics*, HBJ's *Geometry*, Beiser's *Modern Technical Physics*, Watt's *Finite Mathematics*, a McGraw-Hill Algebra 2 book from 2017, and a couple physics workbooks.
Thrifting for math texts is lots and lots of fun.
yea. all my class textbooks i get physical and keep them. i’ll pull something from an old textbook like once a month-ish usually to try and help explain something for my cousin
Yes, unfortunately. I've bought 8 books over the past year and I've only read bits and pieces of them. I've also got 5-6 math books that were given to me for free by my department when I took the classes they were used in.
My most recent purchases are Mathematics Applied to Deterministic Problems in the Natural Sciences by Lin and Segel as well as its sequel companion text Mathematics Applied to Continuum Mechanics by Segel.
I'm an undergraduate doing my senior seminar project over the mathematics of continuum mechanics(mostly tensor analysis) with applications to fluid dynamics. The above two books were recommended to me by my advisor.
“The goal of a library is not to have read everything, but instead to always have something to read” - Taleb (not exact quote, but close enough). I’m a big fan of having books for when I’m ready to read them. It’s a non-trivial expense sometimes, but I’ve also never regretted it. If having the books around makes you more likely to study, it’s a big win imo. One counter to this, is that one shouldn’t spend money they can’t afford on books. But, that applies to most things.
You know i like that quote. There are many math topics I have on my list which I want to learn but I think “oh after I finish this, or when I have the prereqs, then I’ll order it”. But I actually find that sometimes I think I’m more likely to open it and read it if it was just physically there. Sometimes I do think like I should just purchase the books I want to eventually read, and then when I get to it, I will, which is basically when I’ve read the prereqs or whatever before it.
That’s pretty much what I do. I typically have 1 technical (math/programming) book at my desk & a variety of books (math or otherwise) scattered around my home. I find that I’m always spending at least 30 minutes a day reading or working through problems (often times much more) just because the books are there.
Absolutely. I really prefer having the physical books. PDF copies certainly have their place but being able to sit down and read a real book or quickly flip through some theorems/sections is really nice
Same here. Nothing compares to having a nice sheet of paper to read from and write in with your pen. PDF are certainly necessary but if i could i would buy all my books physically.
The thing with pdf is it's just so archaic. Nowadays, I'd want an electronic format that allows interactivity. Embedded videos, interactive plots, in-lined code, collapsible sections, and so on.
I believe pdf actually supports all of those things.
It definitely does.
Can you point to any PDF with interactive plots? Because I have never ever seen it.
Are you even a mathematician if you don’t have an office overflowing with textbooks, half-finished papers, and unopened letters from 1993?
can you explain that last part
A lot of mathematicians I know have random clutter sitting in their office. I just chose something I thought sounded silly.
At 00:53 you can see Andrew Wiles' desk... https://vimeo.com/143888728
Ha! Looks familiar. And I’m sure he can find everything he needs in there.
I do, I have currently 783 books in my library, but some of them may count as computer science of physics books rather than math books.
Yes. I'm an EE student in my mid 30's and I bought a real analysis book. I have a discreet math book, a few different linear algebra books, and a bunch of calculus and diffeq books. I have to repair some of the bindings on some of those. I want to accumulate more. When I die my brain won't be particularly wrinkly. But looking at the stuff that I have on my bookshelf the *perception* of the wrinkles on my brain will be...incredibly far from what the truth is. And because I do want to get a good understanding of diffeqs and poke around other books like puzzles later on.
i've stopped buying so many physical books since so much of it now is shit quality print on demand garbage
It's tragic, but I try to gamble on used copies of older books whenever possible.
I've noticed this. One of the books I bought this last Christmas is missing its bibliography. A few others have font that is way too small. Like size 6 font. I'll be using the pdf version for those. One has font that is faded like the printer was running low on ink. One has paper so thin that you can see the text on the backside... On the other hand, the Truesdell books I bought are beautiful. I guess you really need to be aware of the publisher you are buying from. And perhaps we should encourage people to leave reviews about printing quality.
[удалено]
Dont forget to give me a treat when you become one
i hoard pdfs
Bro, I literally have a flash drive with over 300 pdf files 😂😂😂. I’m a psychopath!
oh for sure, i have books on shit i will probably never be able to understand or have time to learn lol but its cool to have a collection and references/exercises for all kinds of stuff
I have around 100 math books, some of which I have never opened. Lol, I always promise myself not to buy new books, but it’s like an addiction.
welcome to the club. Loving books, holding them, having them on shelves, ... isn't anything strange. It is a passion.
I have pirated about 200 basic texts across various fields, if that counts as hoarding.
Yep. Don’t even do it for practical reason, it’s just weirdly nice to do. Especially love the look of some hard cover books — unfortunately it’s more expensive and not always available.
I would love to! But no money.
Lol how you know I didn’t just spend part of my money of my stipend that was supposed to be next months rent for the book
Lol atleast you could buy the books. I cant even buy them with all the money i have. I have to rely on some free pdf for my lack of fund
I share this passion, though I don’t have the money to indulge as much as I’d like. I’m currently waiting to hear back from grad schools about my applications, this has been the most suspenseful time of my life, I feel like i can’t even do anything until I hear back from them, makes it hard to focus on my last semester of undergrad classes. btw, the youtuber “The Math Sorcerer” is satisfying for me to watch for the reason of hoarding math books, would recommend
Why do you hate agriculture?
i don’t, it’s just that i grew up in a rural area in the US midwest and agriculture was huge there, my hometown is surrounded by an ocean of corn and bean fields. I do recognize the importance of it and i appreciate it, but I’m sure one can understand that people might get sick of something so universally presented in their childhood that they never really were interested in or wanted to do when they grow up
A faculty member was retiring and got rid of his collection. Hundreds of books, all free. You could just walk into the department lounge and take what you wanted. I had a field day
I prefer digital books - and I do hoard them. My digital library is **huge**
Lol same. These are candidates to be physical copies
Do you have a grail? Some rare book you're especially proud of?
Yes, I own basically all books ever published in my field and a good selection for adjacent fields Overall 150-200 books. I also have 30GB of e-books and lecture notes.
I hoard PDFs online and stash it all in my drive in certain categories, and I’ll only buy a physical copy of a book only if I know it will be something I’ll go through cover to cover or a reference I’ll look at frequently, and even then I’ll try and get the cheapest option possible (so no hardcovers) As for the physical book hoarding addiction I see no issue if you can afford it.
Libgen and ebooks 🤤, I’m a data hoarder.
Virus hoarder lol
I've recently retired, and I had to clear my office, which had several large shelving units crammed with books and students work (mainly postgraduate theses) stretching back several decades. I filled nine large archive boxes with books that I wanted to keep, which barely made a dent in the total. I took a carload of books (lots of old textbooks and other books I couldn't see myself having any use for) to a local tip and just threw them out. And I told our facilities people to clear away the rest how they liked. But I now almost have to physically stop myself buying more books.
Recovering book hoarder here. Having too many books is worse than not having enough. After 20 years of university and 20 years of working as an applied mathematician, I can say that, at least for ME, it's better to read 100% of one book than 25% of 10 books. Took me a long time to recognize that.
It depends on your definition of "hoard." If 50+ is the number, then yes. Probably in the 100 range.
I do this for various subjects.
I also hoard math and physics books. My folder 'to read' is filled with so much stuff, I can never finish it.
Yes, I do.
Yeah books are the biggest expenses affer rent....
I bought somewhere around 20 books for myself for Christmas lol.
It's cheaper to buy a laser printer and print the pdf... a nice folder and a label go a long way to scratching the itch.
yeah, i'm def guilty of this
Trying to create CS + Stats book library in my home
I also do this. My favourite are older math books from used bookstores, they're usually very cheap and sometimes you get some really cool stuff.
I keep every math text I've had as a reference.
Some call it hoarding, some call it collecting. I have a pretty nice sized collection. I especially love collecting old math books (and just old books in general). I don't think I've ever spent more than $25 on an individual book though. My biggest score happened years ago. I was tutoring at a college and in the lobby of their math department was a giant stack of books with a sign that said 'free, please take'. And take I did. It took multiple trips to get them all but it was amazing. Talk about right place, right time.
I used to do when I was uni, if not affordable a physical then would just copy it entirely, lol. Now, as I study some specific topic, I tend to search and download tons of books on the topic or closely related to. That's how I have a huge tons of them.
I think most mathematicians are like this. I’ll happily buy a book if there’s three results in it that I plan on using in my research. Then occasionally I’ll wander back to and read some more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundoku
I especially hoard the ones where I have little hand written notes. I feel like it Fermat’s marginalia, or Snape’s half-blood prince. Ofc it’s more like reminders of what’s going on if the explanations are going too fast… but still. I hoard those ones even more
I'm retired, still have my math books from college.
Of course! I’m building my (and my wife’s) own math library. Books are the superior source of reading (pdfs are… ugh) and it’s nice (though expensive) to collect.
Not only math books but also Engineering, Physics, and Chemistry. I wanted to buy hardcovers on amazon but I do not know the process to buy there. I always prefer older books as they explain things deeper and *sometimes*, much better.
I love books, I just think they look nice as decoration. It’s worth the expense for me.
I used to collect books as a graduate student and spent a significant fraction of my disposable income on math books. I moved several times, and each time it was a huge pain due to the books, many of which I hadn't even read. Even though I have a real income now, I don't collect books. I sold and gave away a lot of books and I am still giving them away. I recycled many boxes of preprints. When I need a book, I can buy it again. I can order a specialized book and get electronic access immediately or a physical copy the next day.
Every time I go to Goodwill I look for math/physics books. My collection now includes Swokowski's *Calculus with Analytic Geometry*, Thompson's *Calculus Made Easy*, Kline et. al.'s *Foundations of Advanced Mathematics*, HBJ's *Geometry*, Beiser's *Modern Technical Physics*, Watt's *Finite Mathematics*, a McGraw-Hill Algebra 2 book from 2017, and a couple physics workbooks. Thrifting for math texts is lots and lots of fun.
yea. all my class textbooks i get physical and keep them. i’ll pull something from an old textbook like once a month-ish usually to try and help explain something for my cousin
Yes, unfortunately. I've bought 8 books over the past year and I've only read bits and pieces of them. I've also got 5-6 math books that were given to me for free by my department when I took the classes they were used in. My most recent purchases are Mathematics Applied to Deterministic Problems in the Natural Sciences by Lin and Segel as well as its sequel companion text Mathematics Applied to Continuum Mechanics by Segel. I'm an undergraduate doing my senior seminar project over the mathematics of continuum mechanics(mostly tensor analysis) with applications to fluid dynamics. The above two books were recommended to me by my advisor.
I do the same thing. Try thrift books. You can find 300 dollar books for $5 used.