Hacker News Comments on
How to Prove It: A Structured Approach
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All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this book.I have not read it, but have often seen this one recommended:https://www.amazon.com/How-Prove-Structured-Daniel-Velleman-...
How to Prove It: A Structured Approach by Velleman. New edition came out in 2019. It appears to be aimed at your level, and pricewise isn't too bad.
I couldn't disagree more. I studied Analysis in the Uni, and even in that environment Rudin is pretty bad. For a total newcomer that book will leave you completely helpless. Also, solutions are a must have, without them you are almsot totally lost. In their absence, it is OK to ask on StackExchange or #math on EFnet.First let's start with a few books to prep you for college-level maths:
* https://www.amazon.com/How-Study-as-Mathematics-Major-ebook/...
* https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Proofs-Introduction-Mathemat... ; or
* https://www.amazon.com/Numbers-Proofs-Modular-Mathematics-Al... ; or
* https://www.amazon.com/How-Prove-Structured-Daniel-Velleman-... (I believe you can find solutions to the 2nd edition online)
For Single-Variable Analysis
* https://www.amazon.com/Think-About-Analysis-Lara-Alcock/dp/0...
* https://www.amazon.com/How-Why-One-Variable-Calculus/dp/1119...
* https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Analysis-Straightforward... (contains solutions to exercises)
* https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Analysis-Undergraduate-... (there are solutions online for the 2nd edition)
* https://www.amazon.com/Numbers-Functions-Steps-into-Analysis... (this book is a brilliant exercise-guided approach that helps you build up your knowledge step by step + solutions are provided).
⬐ KoshkinAgree, Rudin is excellent as a second course on real analysis, but as a first one it is absolutely terrible.⬐ bell-cot+1, but nitpicking: There are situations where baby Rudin ("Principles of Mathematical Analysis") can be very good for a first course...but those are corner cases, that you'd want a really good, experienced instructor to sign off on.
I heard this from a senior colleague of mine that he's been working through the book "How to prove it: A Structured Approach"[1] that show how to prove things in mathematics, and has quite good exercises.Perhaps a hands-on approach such as solving the exercises while working through this book will prove beneficial and is complimentary to watching, say, KA or 3B1B.
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/How-Prove-Structured-Daniel-Velleman/...
⬐ jeffreyrogersI think that book is better once you're already fairly comfortable with proofs. I tried to read it early on in my mathematics studies and couldn't understand it. Until you've done a number of proofs and start to see commonalities between them (e.g. proof by contradiction, induction, etc.) you don't have the mental scaffolding to learn more systematic approaches to proofs. I realize the book attempts to teach these techniques, but in my opinion it is hard to motivate these until someone has actually needed to use them to solve problems they're interested in.