#+title: Prof. Sussman's Reading List

 #+author: Gerald Sussman (compiled by Robert McIntyre)

 #+email: rlm@mit.edu

 #+description: Professor Sussman's reading recommendations

 #+keywords: sussman physics computer science reading list MIT

 #+SETUPFILE: ../../aurellem/org/setup.org

 #+INCLUDE: ../../aurellem/org/level-0.org

 #+babel: :mkdirp yes :noweb yes :exports both

 

 * Recommendations

   - Computers and Thought, by Edward A. Feigenbaum (Editor), Julian

     Feldman (Editor). 

     - [[http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/computers-and-thought][MIT Press]]

     - ISBN: 0262560925

     This book includes some of the very interesting early papers in

     AI, and is overall a great book. Of course, some of the included

     papers are not very interesting. 

 

   - The Configuration Space Method for Kinematic Design of Mechanisms,

     by Elisha Sacks and Leo Joskowicz

 

     [[http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/configuration-space-method-kinematic-design-mechanisms][MIT Press]], ISBN: 9780262013895

 

     - I learned a lot reading this. (RLM should read this!)

 

 * TODO Should Add DSPACE links

 * TODO Also add thesis summaries / abstracts

 * Student Theses

   

   - 1977: Scott Elliot Fahlman, A System for Representing and Using

     Real-World Knowledge  

 

     - Basically the reason that the Connection Machine was invented

 

   - 1981: Danny Hillis, The Connection Machine 

     

     - Doesn't tell you anything you can really do today.

 

   - 1984: Andrew Ressler, A Circuit Grammar For Operational Amplifier

     Design

 

     - If you're an Electrical Engineering person.'

 

   - 1987: David A. McAllester, ONTIC: A Knowledge Representation

     System for Mathematics

 

     - very hard, very deep

     - you will need to know a lot of Math

 

   - 1989: Kenneth Man-Kam Yip KAM: Automatic Planning and

     Interpretation of Numerical Experiments Using Geometrical Methods

 

     - Coolest PhD thesis ever!

     - Solve problems using graphs.

     - So cool!

 

   - 1994: Andrew A. Berlin Towards Intelligent Structures: Active

     Control of Buckling

     - Such a good idea

     - cool, short, great idea

     - no one's followed up on it

   

   - Elmer Hung Paramater estimati(on in chaotic Systems (masters) +

     Athanassios Siapas : Global approach to parameter estimation of

     Chaotic Synamical sysstem

     

     - No one put enough effort into seeing if it worked

     - you will win the Nobel Prize if you can get it to work.

 

   - 2009: Alexey Andreyevich Radul Propagation Networks: A Flexible

     and Expressive Substrate for Computation on DSPACE.

 

   - 1999: Daniel Coore Botanical Computing: A Developmental Approach

     to Generating Interconnect Topologies on an Amorphous Computer

     - interesting to programmers

 

   - 2001: Radhika Nagpal Programmable Self-Assembly: Constructing

     Global Shape using Biologically-inspired Local Interactions and

     Origami Mathematics

     - interesting to programmers

 

   - 2001: Ron Weiss Cellular Computation and Communications using

     Engineered Genetic Regulatory Networks

     - interesting to programmers

     

   - 2006: Robert Aubrey Hearn Games, Puzzles, and Computation

 

   - 2002: Jake Beal master's thesis

 

 * Things Micah should read

   

   - Wolpert Principles of development

   - A geneti switch Mark Ptashne

   - Lawrence the making of a fly

   - Frankel "Pattern Formation" (my type of book!)

 

 * Things rlm should read

   - The harmonic mind vol 1+2 smolenck + legendre

   

 * For fun

   - Time's Arrow ad Archemdedes's ???? (price)

     - a reasonable philisopher

   - was einstein right? (clifford will)

 

 * Everybody should know:

   - fundamental physics

     - classical mechanics

     - E & M

     - relativity

     - QM

   - mathemeatics

 

 

 - Bernard F Schultz "A first course in general relativity"

   - readable

   - not too heavy

   - you can just go through it...

   - minimal dependencies

 

 

 - Scott Aaronson "Quantum Computing since Democratus"

   - everything you might want to know about QM, w/ phiospphical

     outlook

 

 

 - Bible + friends

   - whether or not you believe it

   - read between the lines

   - discover what people were actually thinking

   - very interesting document

 

 - Stranger in a strange land 

 

 

 - radio amateur's handbook ARRL

   - /practical/ electronics book

   - done for 100 years

 

 - Radiotron Designer's handbook RCA, 4th edition

   - "I'm very interested in hi-fi."

 

 - Hackers, by Steven Levy

   - Accuracy is not to good - people's names are spelled wrong, for

     example. 

   - But the /feelings/ are exactly right!

 

 * From house interview

 

   - Network Theory, Bose + Stevens

     - beautiful, best book. 

     - obsolete, only linear 

     - get the real story about RLC circuits

 

   - Linear and nonlinear circuits, Chua Sesoler kuh

     - more up-to-date than /Network Theory/

     - 10/10 would teach

     - mathematically very clear

 

   - "Art of electronics practice" horowitz & hill

     - practical

 

   - Grey + meyer (2nd or 3rd) edition "analysis and design of analogue

     and integrated circuits"

 

   - A survey of modern algebra Birkhoff + macland

     - all the wau to gaoias theory

     - clear

 

   - Visual Complex Analusis, Needham

     - Easy reading, well written

 

   - Solid shape, Jan Koenderink

     - just good

 

   - Probability: the Logic of Science, Jaynes

 

   - Calculus on Manifolds, Spivak

     - great notation, inspiration for SICM

     - great flame

 

   - Variational Princ. Mech. Lanczos 

     - very phisolic

     - deep

     - read 100 times, learn something new each time

     

   - Mermin, Space and time in special relativity

     - can be read by H.S. student

     - will change your life

     - you will understand special relativity!

 

   - faynman lectures

     - learn something

     - understandable

 

 

 * Marvin Minsky 

   Minsky really made me as a person. He was my advisor when I was a

   student at MIT, and he got me my first job. He had the "magnetisim"

   to attract the most talented people to MIT to work on AI, and the

   right amount of negligence and delagaion to create an environment

   where people could thrive. He is certainly the reason that I was

   seduced into working on AI. Minsky has vast and deep Scientific

   knowledge -- he could walk into almost any class: Chemistry,

   Physics, Math, Computer Science, and teach the class without

   preparation!

 

   - homepage :: http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/ Much of Minsky's

                 work is here, including his book, /The Emotion

                 Machine/, and several essays and papers. Check it out!

   

   - Society of Mind, by Marvin Minsky

     http://aurellem.org/society-of-mind/

     Read it online! Each chapter of this book is a short,

     self-contained essay about the various 

 

   - Music, Mind, and Meaning, by Marvin Minsky

     https://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/MusicMindMeaning.html

     Minsky is one of a few living people who can /improvise/

     complicated Baroque era fugues. You can hear one of these

     improvisations here: http://aurellem.org/mmm/

 

   - [[http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/steps.html][Steps towards Artificial Intelligence]] Here, Minsky outlines how we

     might begin to build an AI. This is considered to be one of the

     founding papers of the field, along with Turing's "Computing

     Machinery and Intelligence" [[http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html][paper]].

 

   - Perceptrons, by Marvin Minsky

     - [[http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/perceptrons][MIT Press]], ISBN: 9780262631112

     - Really good for "Math types."

     - Uses geometry for proving things. 

     - People unwisely consisdered it to kill off Neural Nets; In fact,

       it only shows the limitations of certain simple kinds of Neural

       Nets.