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19

Thanks for your answer. I truly envy you for your math library.

Alexandria
– Alexandria

2020-10-04 16:02:20 +00:00
Commented Oct 4, 2020 at 16:02
5

I know it's tangential, but I completely agree about the wonders of wandering through shelves of physical books, finding random, fascinating things one wouldn't have thought to look for. I haven't been able to do this for six months now, at either the campus or public libraries, which is sad.

Raghu Parthasarathy
– Raghu Parthasarathy

2020-10-04 22:50:09 +00:00
Commented Oct 4, 2020 at 22:50
3

I just did a rough estimate/count and came up with about 1500 physical math books here, and probably that many or more others (physics, chemistry, biology, other science, semi-popular science, science fiction, philosophy, and all sorts of others that have caught my attention over the years -- for instance, I'm currently reading this book for the 2nd time). For me, I'm always looking up something in my math books, whether for my own interests, answering someone's email request, or (as I'm sure you know) my many online essays and reference citations.

Dave L Renfro
– Dave L Renfro

2020-10-05 07:30:12 +00:00
Commented Oct 5, 2020 at 7:30
3

(returning to this about half a day later) I strongly suspect the OP's professor is joking, as surely he/she knows virtually any university library (in a developed country, in which a math Ph.D. program exists) is going to have at least two or three thousand math books. In fact, the University of Illinois library has about 10,000 books (this excludes bound journal volumes), although to be fair, it's one of the largest in the U.S. Also, I have over digital 1000 math books, these being 1800s books freely available.

Dave L Renfro
– Dave L Renfro

2020-10-05 19:30:56 +00:00
Commented Oct 5, 2020 at 19:30
@Alexandria : Hmm. His book collection is 4x bigger than yours. Yours is anywhere from 150 to 500 times bigger than mine, depending on whether you count only "pure" mathematics books or whether books from heavily mathematical applied fields (e.g. have 2 volumes of Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming ) can also count. Sounds to me like you're unjustifiedly hating yourself by ignoring those who have justifiable hatreds.

The_Sympathizer
– The_Sympathizer

2020-10-07 18:29:40 +00:00
Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 18:29

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