Numerical Recipes
Numerical Recipes by Press et al.by Press et al.
Shares rank 4 of 20 mathematics textbooks by recommenders
People recommend it for algorithm coverage and ready-made numerical code that is hard to beat. Critics say it is not focused on physics and not rigorous.
5 people recommended Numerical Recipes by Press et al. in Hacker News comments, 1 had mixed feelings and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026.
Summary written by Claude from 8 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 7 of those comments still count.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- mixed feelings
- 1
- warn against or regret it
- 1
The record
Recommended in 4 of 12 months
In 5 different threads.
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: 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: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 12 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
- Recommended in 5 threadsNeeds 5 or more, met.
- The biggest thread supplies 20% of its recommendersNeeds half or less, met.
The same rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. Mixed feelings count toward neither side. How the badge works
What people say about it
Reasons grouped from a sample of 7 of the 8 opinions about it, picked in proportion to how many people recommend it, have mixed feelings and criticize it. Each mark is one comment in the sample. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Rigorous algorithms and quality code
“Numerical Recipes and Hacker's Delight have tons of gems that you won't get from an LLM”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me” “that's quite likely to be better quality than what I -- or most folks -- can code up”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him” Fortran learning resource, free online edition
“Two valuable (and related) resources when learning FORTRAN are”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “Learning Fortran (2024)” “Read the older 2nd ed. book in Fortran online for free.”
Comment from 9 Oct 2026 in “Reducing undefined behavior in the C language”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Not focused on physics, not rigorous
“It's not focused on physics. It's also not rigorous.”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Computational Physics (2nd Edition)”
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 | Mixed | Criticize | Approval | Months | Had for | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Algorithms for Optimizationby Kochenderfer and Wheeler | 9 | 1 | 1 | 90% | 1 | — | — |
| Mathematics for Computer Scienceby Lehman, Leighton and Meyer | 8 | 0 | 4 | 67% | 1 | — | — |
| Start Doing Graph Theoryby Sam Burns | 7 | 0 | 1 | 88% | 1 | — | — |
| Numerical Recipesby Press et al.This page | 5 | 1 | 1 | 83% | 4 | — | — |
| Visual Complex Analysisby Tristan Needham | 5 | 0 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
7 of the 8 opinions about it, picked in proportion to the three counts, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Read the older 2nd ed. book in Fortran online for free.”
“Numerical Recipes in C is an existence proof of the adage that the determined FORTRAN programmer can write FORTRAN in any language.”
“code from Numerical Recipes to get around various limitations”
“It's not focused on physics. It's also not rigorous.”
“that's quite likely to be better quality than what I -- or most folks -- can code up”
“Two valuable (and related) resources when learning FORTRAN are”
“Numerical Recipes and Hacker's Delight have tons of gems that you won't get from an LLM”
Counts come from 1,791,911 Hacker News comments labeled by Claude, November 2025 to October 2026, with data through October 31, 2026. Counts updated 2 Nov 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.