<p>I had a look at Sipser's TOC book and a few of the reviews. It looks like Sipser is more approachable than Papadimitriou which has notably bad reviews on Amazon. I think that most either love or hate Papadimitriou with only a few in the love camp. I'll have to keep it (Sipser TOC) on my list of books to consider for my next order batch.</p>
<p>SlithyTove, if you're not fattening my hips, you're thinning my wallet! :D</p>
<p>Kidding (though the cookies are ... well, gone by now; we ALL liked 'em!); that was very easy on my wallet, and I thank you for alerting me to the deal!</p>
<p>S dove into Sipser after summer of soph year of HS. He has loaned it to others at about that time, too -- right after AP Comp Sci, but they had been doing a lot of other programming/math on the side.</p>
<p>The Abelson book, also known as SICP (Sick Pea) is/was the book that 2/3 of MIT students read as freshmen. My S was advised by a Comp Sci prof to begin reading it when he was in 7th grade. He slogged his way through two chapters in two summers, but put it down out of boredom. A couple of summers ago (he is college now) he decided to give it another try and finished the book. It convinced him that he really is not a comp sci person. :( I believe you can download the book through MIT's OCW.</p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback on the SICP book, marite. It's encouraging that the CS prof thought the level was okay for a 7th grader. My son has been accessing it from the MIT website. Hopefully, his experience with the book will not have the same result as your son had!</p>
<p>My son is a pure math absolutist, unfortunately (dreams of his ever getting rich receding into the far distance...)</p>
<p>A couple other math books that someone with that particular bent may enjoy:</p>
<p>"Men of Mathematics" by E.T. Bell, written in 1937 by a longtime Caltech professor, gives the lives of famous mathematicians from ancient times until more recent times (considering written in 1937). Fewer equations, but definitely covers many topics in mathematics development.</p>
<p>"Journey through Genius", written in 1990 by William Dunham, describes a number of interesting and important mathematical theorems through the ages. Includes the basic equations and explains the thought process behind the theorems. These are not too difficult for any high school student reasonably interested in mathematics to follow.</p>
<p>Spawn tells me he's already read "The Number Devil" and "Flatland," not that that stopped me from getting those books, and "In Code: A Mathematical Journey," from the library. :-) I am pretty sure he will be happy to reread the first two, as he often rereads books. (I do, too.)</p>
<p>He has "The Code Book" already, and doh! I'd forgotten that was his text for CTY Cryptology!</p>
<p>I have received the SciAm book club order; thanks again for that tip, SliveyTove!</p>
<p>S has been complaining about not having anything to read in the house (how? how is this possible, when we are up to our ears in books?!), and now, he has books to keep him busy for a few days, anyway!</p>
<p>Owlice:</p>
<p>For more, google books by Eli Maor. s liked e: The Story of a Number very much.</p>
<p>I have been eyeing the bookshelves full of math and science books. When S has his own apartment, I'm sending them on to make space for H's and my books!</p>
<p>Just read The Last Theorem by Clarke and Pohl (sci fi) c'08- emailed son about it who said he'd already read it - his Number Theory prof recommmended it the first day of class this month.</p>
<p>I hope nobody is discouraged by SICP when they first read it. </p>
<p>SICP is the book you read when you first venture into computer science and programming. And the general response is "what?!?" Many people seem to think it's a bunch of non-sense.</p>
<p>SICP is then the book you read after you have been programming for more than a decade and have taken a ton of advanced computer science courses; and you put down the book and start crying because it's so beautiful. (true story)</p>
<p>The book is not about how to write computer programs. The book is about how to write computer programs. It has nothing to do with how to enter instructions into a machine and get such and such algorithm to work or this or that paradigm to do what you want. It's the collective synthesis of some of the deepest thoughts anyone has ever had about what writing a computer program is about, and the key principles that underly it and the entire field of computer science.</p>
<p>The SciAm book club is currently offering me 60% off, so I have placed the Princeton Companion to Mathematics in my cart; it's just under $40 with this deal. </p>
<p>Too bad they don't have An Introduction to the Theory of Computation by Michael Sipser nor anything by Knuth!</p>
<p>I have a book list to buy for our son's Spring Semester and Theory of Computation is on that list. Just waiting for the right coupon from Barnes and Nobles to pull the trigger.</p>
<p>I have it in my Amazon cart at the moment... I should look at B&N and find a coupon for one or the other before pushing that buy button!</p>
<p>My son continues to work through the SICP book and is absolutely loving it.</p>
<p>I got not only the Princeton Companion to Mathematics, but a number of other math-related books, too, for the kid for Christmas, assuming I can wait until then to give them to him... so far, for either his birthday (which was last month) or just 'cause, I've given him Livio's The Golden Ratio, Zero by Seife (which he read through in a day, and which he is apparently rereading, because I found it open on top of the bathroom bookshelf...), and The Annotated Turing, this for him to have as a reference for his science fair project. I gave him one or two other books, too... it's hard to hold back when he enjoys them so much!</p>
<p>Again, I thank everyone for the excellent suggestions!!</p>
<p>Just got S1 Concrete Mathematics by Knuth for his 18th birthday. He devoured it faster than the birthday cake. :) Owlice, when your S gets the Sipser book, S will be delighted to help elaborate on anything he finds confusing! He used it as a textbook for his teaching last year.</p>
<p>BTW, Facebook has a group called "Knuth is my Homeboy"... :D</p>
<p>Thanks, CD! I haven't ordered the book yet; it's sitting in my Amazon cart. The price just increased on it, too, I see, and darn it! Will wait a bit to see whether it goes back down; I find it curious that it went to just over $119 just when Amazon has a promotion of its credit card that ties a benefit to when you "purchase any single item sold by Amazon.com of $119 or more." Maybe I'll stick a washing machine or some such in my cart to see what happens! :D</p>
<p>I ordered Sipser but it turned out that our son is using it in the spring for a course. While surfing around, I also ran into two "books/lecture notes" that parents here might be interested in. The interesting thing is that they are both online:</p>
<p>The Art of Approximation in Science and Engineering
<a href="http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/6-055JSpring-2008/A25EBDAF-AABB-4B33-80B5-4513E2AB2D76/0/book.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/6-055JSpring-2008/A25EBDAF-AABB-4B33-80B5-4513E2AB2D76/0/book.pdf</a></p>
<p>Information and Entropy (in pieces)
MIT</a> OpenCourseWare | Electrical Engineering and Computer Science | 6.050J Information and Entropy, Spring 2003 | Lecture Notes</p>
<p>Does anyone have any firsthand feedback on this study abroad program run by St. Olaf?</p>