Fun_People Archive
6 Oct
Fun with Computers

Date: Thu,  6 Oct 94 12:39:33 PDT
To: Fun_People
Subject: Fun with Computers

    A friend of mine has written a cool book called "Projects In Scientific
Computation."  It's about ways to have fun with a computer (although it claims
to be a textbook and a research reference) and it comes with 300K of source
code (C and Mathematica) on a floppy.
    When he got his publisher to send me a review copy I figured I would read
it and then, if I liked it, I would write a little review.  Well, it arrived
and I started reading it, and I like it, but I'm going to have to change my
plan.  I keep finding myself drawn into interesting tangents, any one of which
could easily turn into a year's work.  It will be a long time before I finish
this book.  So, in the meantime, let me post the following micro-review:

  The book is "Projects in Scientific Computation" by Richard E. Crandall.
  It's published by Springer-Verlag in their "Telos" series.  470 pages
  ISBN 0-387-97808-9

    "Projects" is an impressive and enjoyable work.  Crandall's writing is
conversational without losing precision; even the most abstract concepts get a
clear and compelling presentation.  Although the list of subject areas is quite
extensive, each area strikes me as a particularly interesting one; there
doesn't seem to be a loser or bit of filler in the bunch.  Perhaps it's just
luck, but Crandall has touched on all my favorite computation topics, (and
that's unusual since I'm on the wild and esoteric side).  This "textbook" is
wide-ranging and open-ended enough to be a jumping-off point for years of
independent research.  This is my idea of a Fun_Book.

Disclaimer: No, I don't get a cent from raving over Richard's book and I've
already gotten my free copy.  Of course, I could just be lying through my teeth
about the book... and if so, why would I start telling the truth now?  Maybe
you'd better just check the book out yourself...

 -psl

© 1994 Peter Langston