Concrete Mathematics
Concrete Mathematics by Graham, Knuth and Patashnikby Graham, Knuth and Patashnik
Shares rank 3 of 20 mathematics textbooks by recommenders
Recommended for preparing readers for hard problems and for its summation techniques, and many find it a joy to read.
Recommended for preparing readers for hard problems and for its summation techniques, and many find it a joy to read.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
Other mathematics textbooks people recommend
The four most recommended other mathematics textbooks, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Algorithms for Optimizationby Kochenderfer and Wheeler | 10 | 1 | 91% | 1 | — | — |
| Mathematics for Computer Scienceby Lehman, Leighton and Meyer | 8 | 4 | 67% | 1 | — | — |
| Concrete Mathematicsby Graham, Knuth and PatashnikThis page | 7 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
| Numerical Recipesby Press et al. | 7 | 1 | 88% | 5 | — | — |
| Start Doing Graph Theoryby Sam Burns | 7 | 1 | 88% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
5 of the 7 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“My college algorithm professor always recommends the Concrete mathematics book.”
“Lovely book, very few math books fill one with as much joy as this one.”
“Almost more useful for physicists due to the amount of summation fu you'll learn there.”
“this reminds me of a rather different initiative in the same vein”
“Concrete Mathematics is probably the best single book that you could read to prepare you for some the problems beyond the first 50.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.