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Let's see if we could use MO to put some pressure on certain publishers...

Although it is wonderful that it has been put online, I think it would make an even greater read if "Hodge Cycles, Motives and Shimura Varieties" by Deligne, Milne, Ogus and Shih would be (re)written in the latex typesetting (well, if I could understand its content..).

But enough about my opinion, what do you think? Which book(s) would you like to see "texified"? As customary in a CW question, one book per answer please.

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    $\begingroup$ I'm not a big fan of this question. What is it supposed to mean? Your favorite older math books? I can't imagine how it would be useful to anyone. $\endgroup$ May 13, 2011 at 19:33
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    $\begingroup$ @Max : I am pretty dubious that a MO post will have any effect on a publisher. $\endgroup$ May 13, 2011 at 19:48
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    $\begingroup$ My impression is that things are much more complicated than this. For example the LMS just reprinted Cassels-Froehlich and they had to try to get official permission from all the people who wrote all the articles first, and then some of them were dead etc etc. I think it all took a long time. Someone mentions EGA/SGA below but Grothendieck will not give his permission to reprint and actually explicitly asked people who were TeXifying bits of SGA to stop. I am almost certain that MO has epsilon role to play here. You need to talk direct to publishers and authors. $\endgroup$ May 13, 2011 at 20:46
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    $\begingroup$ I'm on the negative side for keeping this question, since it's too fuzzy and open-ended. Who owns published material is often a complicated issue. (I was actually contacted recently by a European Springer editor about who was next-of-kin to one of my deceased older brothers, who had edited his deceased thesis advisor's last book, which a former publisher had issued but which Springer wanted to reprint.) $\endgroup$ May 13, 2011 at 22:09
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    $\begingroup$ Why go to the publishers? Why not round up five to ten people, agree on a common latex style, type the book up yourselves then put the source and result on a website somewhere? It may demand a lot of work and be illegal as hell, but copyright laws in science are morally wrong anyway. $\endgroup$ May 14, 2011 at 16:36

17 Answers 17

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EGA, with hyperlinks for easy navigation.

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    $\begingroup$ Hyperlinks are indeed very useful; it would be even better if it was easy way to go back to the page you were just reading. $\endgroup$ May 13, 2011 at 16:56
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    $\begingroup$ @André Most modern PDF-viewers come with a "back in the document" button that does what you are asking for; e.g., acrobat reader, okular, skim etc. $\endgroup$ May 13, 2011 at 17:09
  • $\begingroup$ @Peter Really? Where? I've never seen it in acrobat (and would be happy to be poited to it) $\endgroup$ May 14, 2011 at 1:24
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    $\begingroup$ @Peter McNamara: Reader is not really ideal. I have been using Foxit for some time and it is much faster, has back/forward buttons, lets you make bookmarks, etc. $\endgroup$ May 16, 2011 at 9:12
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    $\begingroup$ ega.fppf.site ;-) $\endgroup$
    – Tim
    Dec 8, 2022 at 0:11
18
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Milnor - Lectures on the h-cobordism theorem

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    $\begingroup$ Everything by Milnor. $\endgroup$
    – mephisto
    May 13, 2011 at 18:47
  • $\begingroup$ I agree with you. $\endgroup$
    – hce
    May 13, 2011 at 18:55
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    $\begingroup$ Me too. Especially Morse Theory. $\endgroup$ May 14, 2011 at 2:23
  • $\begingroup$ To be honest, I would definitely prefer the typewriter version of Morse Theory than the Texified version. This book is one of the few math book in typewritter style that managed to present readable (and in my opinion, even beautiful) math formulae. $\endgroup$
    – JSCB
    May 6, 2017 at 18:23
16
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Atiyah - K-Theory

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  • $\begingroup$ I agree. Improve the index as well. $\endgroup$ May 14, 2011 at 1:45
  • $\begingroup$ I have LaTeXed form Chapter I through Appendix. Anyone interested? $\endgroup$
    – eltonjohn
    Jun 10, 2022 at 16:18
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All the SGA's. Note that SGA 1 and 2 already exists in TeX, and there is something for SGA 3 and 4.

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12
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Rolfsen - Knots and Links

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9
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Atiyah + Macdonald, Introduction to Commutative Algebra.

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    $\begingroup$ The AW typesetting if this book is pretty good already, isn't it? $\endgroup$
    – lhf
    May 13, 2011 at 19:33
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    $\begingroup$ You haven't seen a paperback version of this. The printing, at least, is awful. $\endgroup$
    – Simon Rose
    May 13, 2011 at 20:24
  • $\begingroup$ @Simon, you're right, I haven't seen a paperback version. $\endgroup$
    – lhf
    May 14, 2011 at 1:38
8
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Marcus - Number Fields

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  • $\begingroup$ That's my favorite candidate for real typesetting for two reasons: the book is great and the typewritten text is awful to look at. And it was so at the time the book came out. $\endgroup$
    – lhf
    May 14, 2011 at 1:43
  • $\begingroup$ A LaTeXed version was published din 2018 by Springer. $\endgroup$
    – eltonjohn
    Jun 10, 2022 at 16:29
8
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Chern - Complex manifolds without potential theory

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6
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Leon Simon - Lectures on Geometric Measure Theory

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5
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"Lectures on Chevalley Groups" - by Robert Steinberg

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5
  • $\begingroup$ A thorough search on the web will lead you to a TeXed/PDFed version of this. $\endgroup$ May 14, 2011 at 17:42
  • $\begingroup$ Can you give a link? I can't find it. $\endgroup$
    – Najdorf
    May 14, 2011 at 21:35
  • $\begingroup$ @Emmanuel Kowalski: I would appreciate that as well, I've been looking forever by now. $\endgroup$
    – Petrus
    May 16, 2011 at 8:10
  • $\begingroup$ Strangely I can't locate it any more either... The title page of the file claims the TeXing was done by C. Drupieski, but it does not seem to be on his home page... However there is the following PDF scan of the original(A. Ram says he got permission from Steinberg to make it available): math.wisc.edu/%7Eram/YaleNotes.pdf $\endgroup$ May 16, 2011 at 21:46
  • $\begingroup$ I have now posted a copy of my LaTeX version from 2007 on my web page. It appears that some other folks also produced a LaTeX version in 2013. sites.google.com/site/chevalleygroups/notes $\endgroup$ Jun 24, 2014 at 15:33
4
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Palais - Foundations of global non–linear analysis

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4
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Adams - Lectures on Lie Groups

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2
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Stong - Notes on cobordism theory

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1
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Paul Cohen - Set Theory and the Continuum Hypothesis.

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1
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Robin Hartshorne's lecture notes on projective geometry. This appeared as a book and is now out of print. The pages appear to be photographs of pages produced with a typewriter, plus hand-drawn illustrations.

Maybe a wiki should be set up where volunteers can transcribe from the book. Permission from copyright owners might be easy to get if they're not interested in continuing to publish it themselves, and if they are, an attempt to get permission for such a wiki might pressure them to put it back in print with better typesetting.

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1
1
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"Rational Homotopy Theory and Differential Forms." by Griffiths and Morgan.

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0
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Michael Reed. Abstract Non Linear Wave Equations.

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