I suspect "Collector" here is Haug, the man who compiled the book on options formulas. And useful it is too.What is interesting is that this interest is probably cultural in origin. You notice how different educational systems emphasise different approaches. The French with their grande ecoles have a certain theoretical approach. The English used to emphasize theoretical mechanics in their applied maths courses a generation ago. The Russians used to write just about the best books on mathematics, chatty and not overly pedantic, keen to get the point across. The Americans developed a difficult style all their own. The calculus books in America are the largest, and weightiest, books going around. Dirac's "General Relativity" a beautiful and succinct little book in comparision. The Americans produced "Gravitation" by Kip, Thorne and Misner, probably to demonstrate the actual weight of gravity in your hands. I noticed that Scandivanian students used to possess books containing formulas and results, just the results but not the motivating ideas. I wondered if that was the beginning of Collectors interest in finance formulas.

Not sure about this, it could be. My next book has much more words, less results, but much more interesting results doing some "reverse engineering" and you can get some unexpected ideas...and even the result then suddenly looks very very different than we thought.

QuoteOriginally posted by: flairplayI noticed that Scandivanian students used to possess books containing formulas and results, just the results but not the motivating ideasand probably all of us around the world had a copy of abramowitz and stegun in grad school

QuoteOriginally posted by: ppauperQuoteOriginally posted by: flairplayI noticed that Scandivanian students used to possess books containing formulas and results, just the results but not the motivating ideasand probably all of us around the world had a copy of abramowitz and stegun in grad schoolThe scandy books are not in the Abramowitz mould. Collector, look forward to your book. Still impressed that u find the time.

"Still impressed that u find the time."thanks, it is not about finding time, it is about slowing down the time, run faster and think faster and time seems to move slower...in other words your mind and muscles should burn to grow fast!

QuoteThe Russians used to write just about the best books on mathematics, chattychatty Russians?? which books did you read?

Probably not what fairp was referring to and maybe a little to readers digest for you Dan, but I think Geori Tolstov's Fourier Series is the goods.Obviously I read it in the Dover English rather than the original Russian

QuoteOriginally posted by: CuchulainnQuoteThe Russians used to write just about the best books on mathematics, chattychatty Russians?? which books did you read?I have hardly ever read any books to be honest. I might have a quick dip in, but I find thinking out an issue or topic, little thoughts pieced together, helps the most.Anyway chatty not in the style of science fiction or books for laymen, but a certain pedagogical style. Some simple motivating examples and illustrations take you easily into useful topics. A couple of examples would be "Differential and Integral Calculus" by Piskunov and "Intro to Topology" by Borisovich et al. In the former, you are even taken into stability of ODE's and Lyapunov exponents without much a do, and the latter has a clean motivating chapter followed by point set and algrebraic topology. Contrast this with any American text book in calculus, or the standard Munkres' texts on General and Algebraic Topology.Of course in the end it is personal preference. There are people who belong to the Bourbaki school, feeling that the difficulty and pain of learning describes the sophistication of content. Undoubtedly there is some correlation. Nevertheless, in the end it is how much sticks and retains that matters. Here cleanliness and simplicity of exposition counts as well. And I think not many people would regard the Bourbaki school as very useful, at least for pedagogical content.The Russian write-ups were in a spirit very different from Bourbaki. I would have thought this is not so unknown.

and which layer in my book are you referring to, I assume the surface layer about some option formulas? or the magical non-chatty formulae underneath?

QuoteOriginally posted by: flairplayQuoteOriginally posted by: CuchulainnQuoteThe Russians used to write just about the best books on mathematics, chattychatty Russians?? which books did you read?I have hardly ever read any books to be honest. I might have a quick dip in, but I find thinking out an issue or topic, little thoughts pieced together, helps the most.Anyway chatty not in the style of science fiction or books for laymen, but a certain pedagogical style. Some simple motivating examples and illustrations take you easily into useful topics. A couple of examples would be "Differential and Integral Calculus" by Piskunov and "Intro to Topology" by Borisovich et al. In the former, you are even taken into stability of ODE's and Lyapunov exponents without much a do, and the latter has a clean motivating chapter followed by point set and algrebraic topology. Contrast this with any American text book in calculus, or the standard Munkres' texts on General and Algebraic Topology.Of course in the end it is personal preference. There are people who belong to the Bourbaki school, feeling that the difficulty and pain of learning describes the sophistication of content. Undoubtedly there is some correlation. Nevertheless, in the end it is how much sticks and retains that matters. Here cleanliness and simplicity of exposition counts as well. And I think not many people would regard the Bourbaki school as very useful, at least for pedagogical content.The Russian write-ups were in a spirit very different from Bourbaki. I would have thought this is not so unknown.Clear. Nice post. The nice thing is that the theory is motivated by real world example (e.g. like in PDE). For example, motivating group theory by rotations and other geometric transformations of a cube. How does Bourbaki motivate groups?

QuoteOriginally posted by: dibbleProbably not what fairp was referring to and maybe a little to readers digest for you Dan, but I think Geori Tolstov's Fourier Series is the goods.Obviously I read it in the Dover English rather than the original RussianThat is a great book, style is great.In the past I had to read 2-page research articles on Numerical Analysis in Russian. Not chatty at all . managed to learn the Russian, the second half of the battle was the maths

QuoteOriginally posted by: dibbleI think Geori Tolstov's Fourier Series is the goods.Obviously I read it in the Dover English rather than the original Russianit loses a lot in translation