At present, we are sitting still in the hot weather of Shanghai. I have to store a lot of bottles filled with drinking water. The fan is rotating but the wind does not touch me. From time to time, there is night wind but they are so weak to cool down the body. Maybe it is a good idea to take a cold water shower right now.
Recently, it is common that the cold shower style pop in the community. I asked my body building tutor about the cold shower's effect on muscle building, but he has never heard about the cold shower on muscle growth.
Today, I sit in the hot weather of Shanghai and checked the mathematics books in the ECUST library. I found that there were many excellent books there but not too many people care about them. Among the mathematics books, I found some very famous books such the the Principles of Mathematical Analysis by Walter Rudin, The Characteristic group by Herman Weyl, the Lie group by Chavelley. Though it is hot and my swear wetted my shirt, I enjoyed the searching of mathematics books. I found that there were many hardcover books comes from Harvard University Press such as the History of Conic Sections, the books from Princeton University Press such as books of Characteristic Groups and Lie algebra. Most of the books comes from the City University of New York and Michigan University.
I have to say that at the age of 25, still have chance to enter the Library of ECUST to search and read seems to be an excellent experience for me since I enjoy the sense to be enclosed by mathematics books and I found a book of Oxford University Press about the history of mathematics and I found the book is thick and contains many interesting ideas and diagrams. I will concentrate on reading the texts and try to learn the map of mathematics.
I have to say that the order of mathematics books is interesting in our library. First, there are four groups of mathematics publications. First groups is books published by world reowned universities such as Cambridge University, Oxford University. Second group is about the books published recently and they cover all topics and are hard-cover. The third group is paper back books published from 2000 to now and they include some additional books frequently used by students and teachers. The final group is the books of some old schools and I have to say they form an important part of the mathematical education of our school since books written in Chinese has been put into several parts, the main Chinese mathematics books are put in floor five and some others put in floor two and they concern different aspects of culture. Chinese books in floor five mainly concerns the textbooks and examination skills, for example, solution manual of the state graduates entrance examinations. The Chinese mathematics books in floor two is about the historical aspect of mathematics culture and I prefer the books in floor two. Recently the famous book named the Portraits of Contemporary Mathematician has attracted me a lot and I believe I can finish the reading next day. Personally, I have watched a video recently about the Macarthur Fellowship of a Harvard mathematician who majored in the algebraic geometry who explains that the important task of a common citizen is to learn the history of mathematics which brings an overview of mathematics. I believe his view is the same as the view hold by the famous mathematician Shing Tung Yau that the learning mathematics by learning its history.
Today, I started to explore the books of the fourth group in out library and discovered many interesting books. First, let me introduce the ordering of these books. I strongly believe that the library in some US universities is abundant and the books in our library is not more than 1000 mathematics books. I believe that personally I hold some crazy and stubborn idea that reading mathematics and be familiar with its content is important for learning mathematics can defect the weak characteristics of ourselves and to protect us from the demand of this violent world. Well. anyway, I'll start talk about the ordering of these mathematics books. History of mathematics, mathematical logic, set theory, Algebra, linear algebra, group theory, number theory, mathematical analysis, real analysis, calculus, complex analysis, functional analysis, operator algebra, differentia equations, ordinary differential equations, partial differential equations, geometry, projective geometry, Euclidean geometry, non-Euclidean geometry, differential geometry, Riemann surface and probability and statistics.
Among these books, some are my favorite. I have to note that after reading the Portrait, I feel it is necessary to figure out some excellent mathematician and after that I want to read there literature. Sadly, I messed up the books in my library and I was so greed to collect most of them in the mobile books shelves with wheels. I have to apologize to the manager of foreign language textbooks center of ECUST. Among these foreign language books I found books written in English, German and Polish. My major criterion in choosing books is to find the University affiliation of the authors. I don' t know the tree of knowledge of mathematics and I am in total insanity to insist check the university affiliations of every author. I feel that sometimes judge a book by author university affiliation maybe incorrect but i have no other ways to step out of my confusion.
Mathematics is such a mysterious subject and it is written and expressed by many persons. After history floating away, news becomes the old and it is just like the society and countries. But after all, the mathematical truth are always there. So we may start and end by reading the history of mathematics.
I really like your library adventure, you have very well equipped library :)