Comment by con_to_dev | Hacker News Reader

Comment by con_to_dev | Hacker News Reader

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I read and solved most of the problems from Walter Rudin's Real and Complex Analysis, Stephen Willard's General Topology, and a small collection of other books I bought with my limited funds and had shipped to me. I mostly bought from Dover, which has a very nice collection of quality math texts for very low prices, I will say.

My learning method was to try to get up to three texts on the same subject, so I could compare different treatments of the material. This was beneficial because if one text was unclear, I could compare with how the other texts explained this concept and it would hopefully dawn upon me what is right and makes sense. Other than that, I can say that I was at it 8 to 10 hours a day and in many respects, it was my one form of entertainment. I solved PDE's or proved theorems like other people did sudoku or crosswords. I looked at the problems as puzzles and tried very hard to solve them because it was all I had that was amusing. I also became very aware of how beautiful mathematics is and I truly began to love it. That passion helped a lot.

I expect your intelligence helped as well. Many people would simply not be capable of that type of self-directed learning, however much uninterrupted time they had on their hands. That advantage is probably a big part of what allowed you to get through the experience and even get some benefit from it.

This reminds me of a similar thing you see with people who manage to escape the trap of abusive or just otherwise bad parents. Many people fall into mimicking those same behaviors later in life, or are just so psychologically damaged by them that it significantly hampers their future quality of life. Of course, some people do manage to have positive, productive lives despite terrible childhood experiences, but on average those who do tend to have above-average intelligence; they're able to rationalize what happened to them, and thereby have some control over its effects.

Good taste in books.

I'm just surprised they allowed you to read at all. Is it common?

Also, how old were you then?

While it is becoming widely acknowledged that long-term solitary confinement is essentially a form of torture, in theory it's not about causing suffering, but rather about protecting inmate safety. Denying books wouldn't really make sense in that context.

> While it is becoming widely acknowledged that long-term solitary confinement is essentially a form of torture, in theory it's not about causing suffering, but rather about protecting inmate safety. Denying books wouldn't really make sense in that context.

That seems to go against what Wikipedia says? It says it's primarily about punishment rather than safety:

> [Solitary confinement] is mostly employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, usually for violations of prison regulations. However, it is also used as an additional measure of protection for vulnerable inmates.

It may be both, but certainly the stated goal is not psychological torture—so it's not surprising that some limited amount of entertainment is allowed.

It is rather common for inmates to read in prison, there is virtually nothing else to do. However, we were only allowed to have 12 books at a time, so I had to mail many home as I acquired new ones to study. I was 20-23 in solitary, and 18-28 during my sentence.

I didn't have the resources to purchase outside books during my 2 year incarceration but it was remarkable how outdated the "jail library" books were. I read quite a bit of cosmology and physics, mostly 30 or so years old. A personal highlight was finding a Ray Kurzweil book.

> I read quite a bit of cosmology and physics, mostly 30 or so years old

Well, you get all the way to the standard model, so not so bad. I suppose the book quality might have been a problem though.

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