Timeline for Research and exposition: how does writing "basic" books affect your "serious" research work?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
33 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 14 at 8:39 | history | edited | Martin Sleziak | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
a minor typo
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| Jul 30 at 7:50 | answer | added | Simon Crase | timeline score: 3 | |
| Apr 26, 2022 at 11:31 | comment | added | stackoverblown | Writing a book takes a lot of time, planning and effort. Time that you can no longer spend on doing your serious research. Why is this not obvious? | |
| Jan 29, 2019 at 6:00 | review | Close votes | |||
| Feb 3, 2019 at 3:05 | |||||
| Dec 30, 2017 at 14:14 | review | Close votes | |||
| Dec 31, 2017 at 15:48 | |||||
| Oct 12, 2017 at 12:57 | review | Close votes | |||
| Oct 12, 2017 at 16:58 | |||||
| Jan 9, 2015 at 18:18 | vote | accept | CommunityBot | ||
| Jan 5, 2015 at 20:50 | comment | added | user60665 | @AlexandreEremenko Sorry, I wasn't clear: young here means active researchers rather than old professors that don't produce much anymore. | |
| Jan 5, 2015 at 17:02 | comment | added | Alexandre Eremenko | Young mathematicians usually do not write basic textbooks, though there are few exceptions. Assuming that you are a young mathematician, I do not understand why are you asking this question. | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 23:25 | comment | added | darij grinberg | (As far as I understand, some publishing houses -- at least Springer -- are grazing the web for lecture notes, which they then try to convince the respective authors to expand into books. I understand the benefits this has for Springer, though I am less convinced of the benefits for the authors...) | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 23:22 | comment | added | darij grinberg | Books often come out of lecture notes written for one's own students. This is not to say that the way from the lecture notes to the finished book is short or easy (it is not), but it is at least shorter than the way from zero to the finished book. Writing lecture notes provides a lecturer with several boons (students are more satisfied and give better evaluations; the lecturer humiliates themself less as mistakes are caught at writing time; doing the same class a second time becomes easier; etc.). Refining them to a book is arguably not highly valued these days... | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 22:44 | history | reopened |
user60665 Joseph O'Rourke paul garrett John Stillwell Timothy Chow |
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| Jan 4, 2015 at 22:42 | comment | added | Timothy Chow | David Goodstein once wrote: Feynman was a truly great teacher. He prided himself on being able to devise ways to explain even the most profound ideas to beginning students. Once, I said to him, "Dick, explain to me, so that I can understand it, why spin one-half particles obey Fermi-Dirac statistics." Sizing up his audience perfectly, Feynman said, "I'll prepare a freshman lecture on it." But he came back a few days later to say, "I couldn't do it. I couldn't reduce it to the freshman level. That means we don't really understand it." | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 21:30 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | @anon Low blow. Short answer: for someone who wants to keep their job when they are beiong told to do many other things, the benefits are outweighed by costs | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 20:39 | comment | added | anon | Short answer: for a careerist, the benefits are zero. | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 19:34 | comment | added | Carlo Beenakker | academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5556/… | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 15:32 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Todd Trimble | ||
| Jan 4, 2015 at 14:50 | review | Reopen votes | |||
| Jan 4, 2015 at 16:56 | |||||
| Jan 4, 2015 at 14:38 | comment | added | Gottfried William | I don't think this is an opinion based question. It is however an empirical question; in most basic works, the author explains why he or she took the time to write it, how it came about. The answer depends on what is the most frequently given such reason. (And in general, it's obvious from the differences between expositions when a more recent work is compared to texts existing at the time of its writing.) | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 14:31 | history | closed |
Eric Wofsey Felipe Voloch Yemon Choi Carlo Beenakker Andy Putman |
Opinion-based | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 14:28 | answer | added | Gottfried William | timeline score: 23 | |
| S Jan 4, 2015 at 14:24 | history | suggested | user44143 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Serge Lang is not an example here, because this doesn't provide any data on how his writing affected his research. Papers in mathematical education are also not relevant, since those are about effects on students, not on textbook authors. Moved the positive comment in parentheses to the front.
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| Jan 4, 2015 at 14:18 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jan 4, 2015 at 14:24 | |||||
| Jan 4, 2015 at 13:59 | comment | added | user60665 | @YemonChoi For your first comment: I don't know, that's why I'm asking a question here. For the second one: I assure I'm not: I'm here indeed to see some well-argumented solidly based positions on this matter. | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 13:38 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | I'm afraid it feels to me like you are fishing for answers which will tell you what you want to hear, or confirm your preconceptions. Also, teaching != textbook-writing | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 13:37 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | What makes you think Serge Lang was/is representative? What makes you think the circumstances of his career at that time and in those places generalize to a general discussion as in your question? | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 13:35 | comment | added | user60665 | @YemonChoi I may be wrong, but I don't think that a busy researcher would spend his time writing so many books (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_Lang#Books_2) even on really basic material out of sense of service alone without gaining some good: indeed, I heard that teaching is a good way of learning too. | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 13:25 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | Why do you suppose there are any benefits to the author? Maybe it is done out of a sense of service, not to reap any mathematical benefits | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 13:22 | history | edited | user60665 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
edited title
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| Jan 4, 2015 at 13:15 | history | edited | user60665 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 133 characters in body
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| Jan 4, 2015 at 13:12 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jan 4, 2015 at 14:35 | |||||
| Jan 4, 2015 at 12:53 | history | edited | user60665 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 100 characters in body
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| Jan 4, 2015 at 12:37 | history | asked | user60665 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |