Comments on: Tom Apostol signed my Calculus Book!

By: George

George — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 13:31:45 +0000

Well ..

did not know TA had such a fan club. You’re lucky guys to have been tought by him in persona !!

I have the two volumes still mint. They are the XEROX editions ( white BG & blue letters oftback) I dated them 1973 when I firts bought them in Bogota !!!

I’ve recently put new protective covers and one day intend to study them again, ahhmmm.

How could I get TA to sign them here in the UK ?

By: protoman no one

protoman no one — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:19:55 +0000

nice book, writed by a nice man…………..^-^
is he alive????? because i don´t know

By: David Peixoto

David Peixoto — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 03:41:55 +0000

I used Apostol’s books (and Feynman’s 3 volumes ) during my electronic-engineer course in UFPE, Brazil. I’m so regretted for not buying those during that time and I’m looking for purchase them now as souvenirs to remember me that wonderful time. Those books are masterpieces for anyone who likes science in general.
I’m jealous too.

By: Penguin

Penguin — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 06:51:26 +0000

We don’t use your Californian filth. We use real textbooks. =P

Heh. We use Simmons for Calc 1 & 2. It’s a McGraw Hill book, so it’s not specialized or anything… but our math professors also deal out their own $12 “notes” that we use more frequently than the textbook anyway.

By: Eugene

Eugene — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 03:31:00 +0000

Yeah, I had the option of taking analysis I xor II, but I decided to just take the calc bc credit and move on to “more advanced” stuff (calc in three dimensions and matrix algebra) right away. Ah, AP credit…one of the reason’s I didn’t choose Caltech ^^;

Actually, I think that’s one of the weaknesses of the CS program here…that they don’t have rigorous core requirements in math and physics. The CS courses are the only really challenging required courses. Though we’re required to take 4 science courses, 4 math courses, and 8 humanities, I and a lot of people I know placed out of most or all of that through AP/IB (I know a kid with over 2 years of units…I have ~1.5 years). The advantage to this is that you can double major easily without taking tons of auxiliary courses.

Though I (surprisingly) won’t be required to take any more pure math classes for my CS degree after this semester, I think I’m going to take various other math and physics courses because they’re useful and interesting…. and of course I’m going to try to double major in ECE.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 21:11:14 +0000

Lol, Euge. Remember one of the reasons why I ultimately decided to come to Caltech was because of the theoretical basis of learning? Apostol’s book was a factor. Reading the book makes me feel smarter even if I don’t really understand anything in it :). I think CMU’s Analysis courses are about equivalent to Ma1 here.

Christina: Wow, I didn’t know Columbia used Apostol too! Well, I suppose that’s not all that surprising since Columbia is also a science powerhouse (except that we don’t hear about that aspect as much despite lots of Nobel Prize winners having connections to Columbia). I did a quick Google search though and found that Columbia’s Math Honors 4 course is using Apostol’s second volume (I’m still on the first volume). So I think they might just be using his second volume instead of the first? Btw, you can still post on your blog even if the asides feature doesn’t work all that great yet…

By: Christina

Christina — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 15:01:58 +0000

Oh, people here have those books, too. Not me.

By: Eugene

Eugene — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 14:17:22 +0000

Omg, I’m so jealous!!1