On Tue, Jan 06, 2009 at 08:50:45PM -0500, WJhonson(a)aol.com wrote:
New textbooks are being written *every year* on every
topic
imaginable. The idea that a person cannot find a new textbook on say
"Differential Equations" published in the last *five* years and
therefore must refer to Journal articles simply to establish
notability, and then to introduce 14 new concepts, never published in
any secondary text, is simply untenable. The greater likelihood is
that they didn't try :)
Textbooks labeled "Differential equations" will contain the same thing
next year that they have for the past 50. In the same way, books labeled
"Calculus" will not be amended to cover contemporary research in
mathematical analysis. The "textbooks" that might cover contemporary
results are graduate-level monographs, many of which are themselves
primary sources because of the volume of unpublished material they
contain.
- Carl