On 2/20/09, Marco Ciampa <ciampix at libero.it> wrote:
> OT: could you expert suggest a good math book for who, like me,
> would like to appreciate better math for, consequently, appreciate
> better maxima? :-)
Well, at its foundation, Maxima is a system for formal manipulation
of expressions, that is, manipulations which ignore the context of
an expression. So maybe abstract algebra is a good topic to study
to put one in a frame of mind to understand Maxima. Maybe the book
"A = B" by Petkovsek, Wilf, & Zeilberger is useful here (I didn't read it).
Less abstractly, Maxima knows identities or formulas which are useful
for specific branches of applied mathematics. Broadly speaking
Maxima embodies something about much of the mathematics
which would be suitable for undergraduate physics (that's probably not
an accident). You could probably get a book about math for physics
majors which would cover a lot of the stuff implemented by Maxima.
I have an old edition of such a book by Arfken which has been
interesting and/or useful at one time or another. I'm sure there are
many others.
Hope this helps!
Robert Dodier