Mercurial > thoughts

     1 #+title: Prof. Sussman's Reading List

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

     3 #+email: rlm@mit.edu

     4 #+description: Professor Sussman's reading recommendations

     5 #+keywords: sussman physics computer science reading list MIT

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

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

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

     9 

    10 If you want to cite any of these papers, [[./sussman-recs.bib][here]] is a bibtex format file

    11 that contains all of these papers in the order they appear on the

    12 page. ([[./sussman-recs.bib]]).

    13 

    14 * Recommendations

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

    16     Feldman (Editor). 

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

    18     - ISBN: 0262560925

    19     This book includes some of the very interesting early papers in

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

    21     papers are not very interesting. 

    22 

    23   - The Configuration Space Method for Kinematic Design of Mechanisms,

    24     by Elisha Sacks and Leo Joskowicz

    25 

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

    27 

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

    29 

    30 * TODO Should Add DSPACE links

    31 * TODO Also add thesis summaries / abstracts

    32 

    33 * Things Micah should read

    34   

    35   - Wolpert Principles of development

    36   - A geneti switch Mark Ptashne

    37   - Lawrence the making of a fly

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

    39 

    40 * Things rlm should read

    41   - The harmonic mind vol 1+2 smolenck + legendre

    42   

    43 * For fun

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

    45     - a reasonable philisopher

    46   - was einstein right? (clifford will)

    47 

    48 * Everybody should know:

    49   - fundamental physics

    50     - classical mechanics

    51     - E & M

    52     - relativity

    53     - QM

    54   - mathemeatics

    55 

    56 

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

    58   - readable

    59   - not too heavy

    60   - you can just go through it...

    61   - minimal dependencies

    62 

    63 

    64 - Scott Aaronson "Quantum Computing since Democratus"

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

    66     outlook

    67 

    68 

    69 - Bible + friends

    70   - whether or not you believe it

    71   - read between the lines

    72   - discover what people were actually thinking

    73   - very interesting document

    74 

    75 - Stranger in a strange land 

    76 

    77 

    78 - radio amateur's handbook ARRL

    79   - /practical/ electronics book

    80   - done for 100 years

    81 

    82 - Radiotron Designer's handbook RCA, 4th edition

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

    84 

    85 - Hackers, by Steven Levy

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

    87     example. 

    88   - But the /feelings/ are exactly right!

    89 

    90 * From house interview

    91 

    92   - Network Theory, Bose + Stevens

    93     - beautiful, best book. 

    94     - obsolete, only linear 

    95     - get the real story about RLC circuits

    96 

    97   - Linear and nonlinear circuits, Chua Sesoler kuh

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

    99     - 10/10 would teach

   100     - mathematically very clear

   101 

   102   - "Art of electronics practice" horowitz & hill

   103     - practical

   104 

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

   106     and integrated circuits"

   107 

   108   - A survey of modern algebra Birkhoff + macland

   109     - all the wau to gaoias theory

   110     - clear

   111 

   112   - Visual Complex Analusis, Needham

   113     - Easy reading, well written

   114 

   115   - Solid shape, Jan Koenderink

   116     - just good

   117 

   118   - Probability: the Logic of Science, Jaynes

   119 

   120   - Calculus on Manifolds, Spivak

   121     - great notation, inspiration for SICM

   122     - great flame

   123 

   124   - Variational Princ. Mech. Lanczos 

   125     - very phisolic

   126     - deep

   127     - read 100 times, learn something new each time

   128     

   129   - Mermin, Space and time in special relativity

   130     - can be read by H.S. student

   131     - will change your life

   132     - you will understand special relativity!

   133 

   134   - faynman lectures

   135     - learn something

   136     - understandable

   137 

   138 

   139 * Marvin Minsky 

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

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

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

   143   right amount of negligence and delagaion to create an environment

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

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

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

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

   148   preparation!

   149 

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

   151                 work is here, including his book, /The Emotion

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

   153   

   154   - Society of Mind, by Marvin Minsky

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

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

   157     self-contained essay about the various 

   158 

   159   - Music, Mind, and Meaning, by Marvin Minsky

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

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

   162     complicated Baroque era fugues. You can hear one of these

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

   164 

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

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

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

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

   169 

   170   - Perceptrons, by Marvin Minsky

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

   172     - Really good for "Math types."

   173     - Uses geometry for proving things. 

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

   175       it only shows the limitations of certain simple kinds of Neural

   176       Nets.

   177 

   178 * Representative Student Theses

   179   

   180   These are students where I played a large role in their

   181   education. Many of them represent compelling research directions

   182   that desperatly need to be extented by the next generation of

   183   researchers! As Minsky says, if you want to do something really new,

   184   go back to points in the past where there was a neat idea that never

   185   really caught on, and follow the path of that idea to see where it

   186   leads. A comprehensive list of all my student's works can be found

   187   at my [[http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/gjs/gjs.html][homepage]]. If you want to cite any of these papers, you can

   188   find bibtex citations here: [[./sussman-recs.bib]].

   189 

   190   In particular, here's two great ideas that seem extremely promising

   191   and have NOT been properly explored! You could be the first person

   192   to get them working!

   193 

   194   - Using Chaotic Systems to get unlimited measurement precision!

   195     - Two papers: 

   196       - [[http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/5953][A Global Approach to Parameter Estimation of Chaotic Dynamical

   197         Systems]], by [[http://eas.caltech.edu/people/3209/profile][Athanassios G. Siapas]], 1992.

   198       - [[http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/7060][Paramater Estimation in Chaotic Systems]], by Elmer Hung, 1995.

   199     - No one put enough effort into seeing if it really worked.

   200     - Seems to allow for almost unlimited percision in measurement. 

   201     - Initial results look very promising, with a =13 order of

   202       magnitude= improvement in measurement precision in a simple

   203       experiment. 

   204     - You will win the Nobel Prize if you can get it to work, because

   205       you will revolutionize the way we do measurements. 

   206 

   207   - [[http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/12007][Towards Intelligent Structures: Active Control of Buckling]]

   208     - By [[http://www.berlinplace.com/][Andrew A. Berlin]], 1994

   209     - Achieves a 10 fold increase in strength by actively eliminating

   210       vibrational modes. 

   211     - Such a good idea; It's cool, short -- great!

   212     - No one's followed up on it!

   213   

   214   In historical order:

   215 

   216   - [[http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/6888][A System for Representing and Using Real-World Knowledge]]

   217     - By [[http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/][Scott Elliot Fahlman]], 1977

   218     - Basically the reason that the Connection Machine was later

   219       invented.

   220 

   221   - [[http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/5679][The Connection Machine]]

   222     - By [[http://longnow.org/people/board/danny0/][Danny Hillis]], 1981

   223     - Beautiful thesis, though it doesn't tell you anything you can

   224       really /do/ today.

   225 

   226   - [[http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/6948][A Circuit Grammar For Operational Amplifier Design]]

   227     - By Andrew Ressler, 1984

   228     - If you're an Electrical Engineering person.

   229 

   230   - [[http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/6959][ONTIC: A Knowledge Representation System for Mathematics]]

   231     - By [[http://ttic.uchicago.edu/~dmcallester/][David A. McAllester]], 1987

   232     - Very hard, very deep.

   233     - You will need to know a lot of Math.

   234 

   235   - [[http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/7025][KAM: Automatic Planning and Interpretation of Numerical

   236     Experiments Using Geometrical Methods]]

   237     - By Kenneth Man-Kam Yip, 1989

   238     - Coolest PhD thesis ever!

   239     - Solve problems using graphs.

   240     - So cool!

   241 

   242   - [[http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/80483][Botanical Computing: A Developmental Approach to Generating

   243     Interconnect Topologies on an Amorphous Computer]]

   244     - By [[http://sta.uwi.edu/pelican/60under60/dcoore.asp][Daniel Coore]], 1999

   245     - Interesting to programmers especially.

   246 

   247   - [[http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/86667][Programmable Self-Assembly: Constructing Global Shape using

   248     Biologically-inspired Local Interactions and Origami Mathematics]]

   249     By [[http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~rad/][Radhika Nagpal]], 2001

   250     - Also Interesting to programmers.

   251 

   252   - [[http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/8228][Cellular Computation and Communications using Engineered Genetic

   253     Regulatory Networks]]

   254     - By [[http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rweiss/][Ron Weiss]], 2001

   255     - Third in a line of bio / amorphous computing papers which should

   256       be highly interesting to programmers.

   257 

   258   - [[http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/6082][An Algorithm for Bootstrapping Communications]] 

   259     - By Jake Beal, 2001

   260     - Seems like it could be "the right thing" for how modules in the

   261       brain learn to talk to each other.

   262     - Someone should expand on this work!

   263     - Also a PhD thesis from Beal on this: [[http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/38483][Learning by Learning to

   264       Communicate]], 2007

   265 

   266   - Games, Puzzles, and Computation

   267     - By Robert Aubrey Hearn, 2006.

   268       

   269   - Propagation Networks: A Flexible and Expressive Substrate for

   270     Computation.

   271     - By Alexey Andreyevich Radul, 2009

   272
author	rlm
date	Tue, 03 Jun 2014 13:19:41 -0400
parents	616f461ec98d
children	174455d6d0ba