Day 7: CM, Page vii

... a concrete life preserver thrown to students sinking in a sea of abstraction.
- W. Gottschalk

Day 7: The third page of the preface. Today is another easy day. The authors describe the comments in the margins of the book. The margins contain a mix of quotations from prominent mathematicians and the students in the class. "Students always know better than their teachers, so we have asked the first students of this material to contribute their frank opinions, as "graffiti" in the margins" (CM p.vii). For example, "I have only a marginal interest in this subject". Many of the comments in the margins are humorous or corny, but many are also pragmatic and provide hints or things to watch out for.

Six more pages of preface, notation, and table of contents. Then we'll actually begin with the book!

On the side, I'm trying to get LaTeX working on my laptop. I'm going for a transparent background so I can get the blog converted back to black. Here's a test:


Hmm... the editor has a white background... I guess I'll stick to the white background.