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The "basics"

Posted By: Timothy Chow
Date: Friday, 10 December 2010, at 4:02 p.m.

In Response To: Disagree with Stick's Book Review (Stick)

I've found that as a person gets better at something (not just backgammon), he or she will continually update the definition of "the basics."

The title of Andre Weil's Basic Number Theory is a standard joke among mathematicians. Very few professional mathematicians, other than those who specialize in number theory, understand the material in Weil's book. In fairness to Weil, the material in this book is indeed fundamental, and anyone who hopes to do original research in the area needs to know it. But for anyone other than a professional, this book is not at all "basic."

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