Customer Reviews

CRC Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics, Second Edition

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

After reading the account of the author's legal problems brought
on by the publisher, I cannot bring myself to purchase a copy
of the book. This book, together Eric's experiences, amount
to a significant turning point in the history of the relationship
between an author and his publisher. It stands as an example of
how corporations have become entirely too powerful against an
individual. It is inconcievable that such circumstances have prevailed. The worst part is that the publisher's actions will continue to stifle development of the work!

This book is the centerpiece of a very scary and disturbing legal altercation in which the publisher, CRC Press LLC, basically tried to strong-arm Eric W. Weisstein into gaining complete control over the material on his mathworld website, after he signed a contract for them to publish this book, which is essentially a snapshot of the material.

I would urge everyone to show personal support for Eric W. Weisstein in whatever way possible--donations are a great idea. However, by buying this book you are supporting a company that is greedy and downright creepy. You're also encouraging other companies to do the same.

We need to show the publishing industry that greed does not pay--and one great way of doing that is by not buying this book.

I'm not giving this book 1 star because its a bad book! I'm giving this book 1 star because you shouldn't under any circumstances buy it (in my opinion of course).

The book is a compilation of the mathematical artices compiled by Weisstein over many years. It is the most complete collection of introductory mathematics you can imagine, with ever expanding detail, and contributions from a large number of different writers. I could effuse about the content for hours: it has saved my mathematical bacon on very many occasions, and remains my major reference to new areas of math. This book, while being a new edition, still only contains a small fraction of Eric's content.

The complete contents of this book, instantly and easily searchable, with cross references, links to other topics and sites, and incorporating animations is all available at the mathword.wolfram.com website. It is all available free of charge, and is constantly edited and updated. In addition, a huge amount of extra material is there which couldn't be contained in this book.

A previous reviewer alluded to the fact that Eric, when trying to publish his website (which was always a website, long before he signed the deal for the book, and was given special dispensation in the publishing contract), was sued by the publisher of this book and told to take his site down. Although I can see it from the publishers point of view, their attitude towards this key resource was undoubtedly callous and cynical.

I'd really recommend you use his excellent website. If you feel bad that Eric isn't getting his royalty from your purchase: send him a cheque for $5.

I bought my first CRC book (Handbook of Math Tables) about 40 years ago. I used it until it fell apart, then have bought a few more copies over the years, along with a few of the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics and the excellent Engineering Science book. I've always had good regard for CRC's publications.

However, reading what happened between the author and CRC soured my attitude towards CRC. While there's nothing wrong with making a profit, their behavior seems excessive. Based on what I've read, I've decided to not purchase any more CRC products. If you feel the same way, encourage your colleagues to do the same. I'd like to feel that CRC won the battle, but lost the war.

Finally, I haven't used the web site's material a lot, but when I did, it was quite good. I suggest going with another poster's suggestion of using the web, but not buy the book.

You can read what editors did to Eric Weisstein on the web. I've just one thing to say: as mathematicians, we should never support such processes. Look, this book is almost the only one I found on Amazon where the "Look inside this book" option has been locked. This is business only, not maths, and we mathematicians are not sharks.

I wish I had known about how evil and unethical the people at CRC are before I bought this book from .... You can read the sordid details on the web site for the book mathworld.wolfram.com. As for the book and CD, it is a great resource; I'll take the other reviewers' word for it not being as rigorous or complete as a professional mathematician would want -- most people who need a book like this are not professional matheticians (why would a professional mathetician even need any math encyclopedia anyway?).

This is a *partial* copy of the Mathworld material online at the Wolfram Research web site.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/

It makes for a decent mathematical enclopedia, but there are many others around, which should be purchased instead - look on Amazon for reviews.

To most reasonable peoples thinking, CRC should not be allowed to make any money on this particular book.

The FAQ on the Wolfram Research web site

"Q: May I host a mirror site or create a personal mirror?
A: No. The material on this site is updated frequently, and so any mirror would rapidly become out-of-date ...."

So if a mirror of the web site will soon be out of date, it goes without saying the book will too. Now I am one of those people who like to have hard copies of books, and would generally accept it might not be as up to date as the web. (I own a copy of "The Mathematica Book", despite it is all online for free).

But in this case, given what CRC did to Weisstein and Wolfram Research, I would not out of principal buy this book.

Also, I would suggest that nobody contributes to the Wolfram Research web site, as CRC get the copyright. I use the material on there, and find it useful, but I would not write something so that CRC can benifit.

As someone else said, send Weisstein $5, then buy another book.

Extensive and rich in content. However, a few years ago, before this encyclopedia was in book form, it was a web site, and that web site was in the minds of many of us the -foremost- math-related web site on the Internet. It was a work widely referenced online and discussed on the messageboards; it had huge potential in the Internet medium. I certainly hope that the CRC lawsuit banning the web site (currently mathworld.wolfram.com) will be withdrawn. As is, I certainly will not purchase the book.

I like many of my colleagues have intentionally now for years boycotted CRC due to its unethical dealings with the author of this book (Dr. Weisstein, Wolfram Mathworld). I can only hope their sales have suffered as a result. Spread the word: don't buy anything from CRC Press.

I have spent hours and hours reading both editions of this book. It rates 5 stars in my opinion for its contents. BUT, the website is the better place to go. Although I did buy second edition to get rid of the many errata in the first edition, I wholeheartedly agree that the CRC's behaviour has been nothing less than disgraceful. So, call me a Quisling. I bought the second edition for the comfort of reading paper, but the CRC has also, to my regret, responded to the extendend material by degrading the quality of the paper. The first edition was physically solid, in the second you have to be careful not to tear the pages.

Support Eric any way you can, but unless you are a compulsive paper-lover like me, make do with the on-line version.

A complaint about the book. It is studded with examples from Mathematica. But they are pretty useless for anyone, who does not have that program. The publishers hail that feature as. For those of us, who don't have Mathematica, it is only so much extraneous matter. On the website, the Mathematica examples have their place, but not in print, where only a fraction of the readers have the software.