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Re:SICP - summary of 10 months working through the entire book by wheeler on Saturday April 19, 2008 @10:21AM (#167995)
Excellent advice. The smartest mathematicians and physicists often invent their own funny little diagrams for doing calculations---it's a real pity these usually don't make it into print. An obvious exception is Feynman diagrams.

I can't locate The Spellbook by Serge Lang. Can you give me a link?

Re:SICP - summary of 10 months working through the entire book by jacobolus on Saturday April 19, 2008 @10:38AM (#167999)
I assume he's talking about the first of these:

http://www.amazon.com/Algebra-Serge-Lang/dp/038795385X/

http://www.amazon.com/Undergraduate-Algebra-Texts-Mathematic...

Michael Artin's book is also a decent text aimed mostly at undergraduates:

http://www.amazon.com/Algebra-Michael-Artin/dp/0130047635/

Re:SICP - summary of 10 months working through the entire book by mnemonicsloth on Saturday April 19, 2008 @11:42AM (#168022)
Did you like Artin?

My first-year class in field & Galois theory started with the Artin text, and by mid-semester I started daydreaming about ripping out random pages and mailing them to the author.

But I don't like colloquial exposition, so YMMV.