Should I seek professional help because I have a lot of math books?

Question

I’m a graduate student in mathematics. One day, there was a discussion between graduate students about how many books a working mathematician has. Then each student would talk about their personal math library and then they would name their preferred book in each area of math.

All the students had a relatively small library. When it was my turn, I simply said the truth that I have around 1,000 ebooks and 100 physical books and that I have bought all of them and have not downloaded any of them illegally. I also explained that I like to learn a lot of math and I’m passionate and enthusiastic about math. I also explained that I have not studied all of these books thoroughly.

Then suddenly a professor stated (when others were also present) that I have more books than the university library. He then said that I should immediately seek professional help.

I was very offended by what this professor said but I never discussed it with him because I thought that I was in an emotional state and I did not want to speak to him when I was not calm. After a while, I thought that it was my own mistake and I should not be so honest about my math library.

So I have now two questions:

1. Is the number of my books unreasonable compared to how many books a graduate student or working mathematician own?
2. If I need professional help because I buy math books regularly?

Answer 1

Personally, it seems to me that he was just making a joke. Awkwardly, perhaps, but still, just a joke. Your personal library seemed to him (and me) to be so "over the top" that it was hard to fathom. Had he said something like "Wow, are you ever intense?" it would have had about the same meaning.

It is possible that he had a negative feeling about it, but I really doubt it.

Or maybe a meaning like "Wow, you need to learn to relax a bit."

But if you are so intense that you are ending up hurting your health, then professional help is actually advisable.

Answer 2

I own at least 4,000 physical books... True, some of my faculty colleagues own nearly none, and some treated me as a lending library. :)

Prior to the existence of any sort of electronic books, at active math departments it was essentially necessary to have one's own copy of a high-demand book, otherwise the endless cycles of recall requests would prevent useful access. In those days, in the Princeton Univ math library, most of the most significant books were eternally checked out.

Nowadays, yes, many things are available on-line without violation of rules. Still, not everything.

Also, the process of access with physical books adds a random element that is occasionally very lucky, in the sense of accidentally finding something you didn't know you wanted to find... in the course of looking for what you thought you wanted. In contrast, with a too-controlled search (especially if one is missing some keywords) one rarely finds anything one wasn't already aware of to some degree.

It's true that technical books are expensive. I did pay for all my books myself, rationalizing that what I saved on clothes was spent on books...? :)

It is also true that some people pretend that they "know enough" to do whatever their research is. Maybe so, but my own approach seems to require that I learn more and more things. Surely a matter of taste.

Answer 3

1. you probably have bought many more books than most mathematics grad students because 1100 books is prohibitively expensive. I didn't have an extra $1100 lying around when I was a grad student. All the physics grad students I know with substantial collections did download the PDFs illegally, and used their collection more for reference and particular sections of books rather than reading all of them.

2. you definitely don't need professional help just because you own a lot of books.

If you are looking for advice on your mental or emotional state, I think your reaction is a little off. The professor was either wrong or joking, but very likely you shouldn't take his advice so seriously. The fact that you took it to heart enough to write in about it might show that you're a little insecure about your habits (or you're fixated on other people agreeing you're correct or proving the professor wrong or something). If you lived with less of that stress you might be happier. Being stressed about these things is well within the range of normal behavior (though you may see more success if you watch out for overreacting in professional situations). Just something to think about.

Answer 4

tl;dr I think your professor was rude (and your library is underfunded).

I probably accumulated that many serious physical books over a long career, most of which I gave away when I retired. I have a friend with many more.

I still maintain a substantial collection of recreational mathematics, and some classics.

I don't collect ebooks.

I suspect that nowadays you're at the high end of the distribution for the number of physical math books mathematicians own. But that's no reason to need or seek therapy. Some people just like books.

Answer 5

I disagree with the prevailing sentiment. You could probably benefit from speaking to a professional.

1. "I spent most of my income on buying books." This is not a smart thing to do with your money. Unless you have a fully funded retirement, you are frittering away your money on something with extremely limited value. Books have almost no resale value, as I discovered when I sold my own academic collection.
2. "My mind was occupied by what this professor said and I could not concentrate for one whole week." This is not a healthy reaction to any kind of social interaction. Learning some coping strategies to escape these obsessive thoughts would certainly help you.
3. A thousand books is not necessary or useful. There are very many working mathematicians who do not accrue this number of books. What would you even do with them? Did you index them so that you can quickly search for information? What fraction of them have you read? Are these really useful tools to you or just tokens to accrue and hoard?

I am not a professional psychologist, but based on your unhealthy response to an offhand remark about what appears to be an obsessive (and certainly financially unsound) habit, I think you could probably benefit from talking to a professional. That's what they exist for: to help people. Think about it.

Answer 6

One thing that you might want to pay attention to is that this interaction touched on the topic of money, which is a sensitive subject for a lot of people and can trigger a wide range of emotions. The fact that you could afford to buy over 1000 math books, in a place where your library may be underfunded and maybe your professor also cannot afford to buy as many books as he would like to, might have aroused negative emotions of jealousy, resentment based on economic or social status, and similar things. The professor’s remark might have been driven by such emotions. When people are upset they are more inclined to say hurtful things that reflect their own personal frustrations.

Moreover, it’s not just that you owned up to having (relatively speaking) a lot of money, but you are making a use of that money that the professor might consider frivolous or inefficient. The truth is, as much as all of us mathematicians love reading math books, it’s not realistically possible for someone to read that many books at a level of depth and over a time duration that makes it sensible to buy them when you are in graduate school. So one may get the feeling that you may be a person who likes owning books just for the sake of owning them even beyond the point where it might actually help you learn more mathematics (disclosure: I also went through a period where I also bought more math books than I’m able to read; eventually I realized there wasn’t any point to it so I stopped doing it). The professor’s negative reaction might reflect such a sentiment.

1. Is the number of my books unreasonable compared to how many books a graduate student or working mathematician own?

This question doesn’t make any sense to me. Different people have different preferences, and one should not decide what or how many books to buy by comparing oneself to other people.

2. If I need professional help because I buy math books regularly?

First of all, “professional help” is a very silly euphemism. If I were a psychologist I’d take offense that people refuse to name the service I offer but instead resort to such coded language. But if you mean to ask if you need therapy, I’d say you don’t need it any more than the professor you told us about, or any other random, healthy person.

Answer 7

When I was a grad student (that was a very long time ago - we had no e-books), I loved to buy (mostly graduate-level) math paper books. There used to be more book store in NYC than there are now - we used to raid Book Scientific, Mir books at Viktor Kamkin, Warren Books, the math section at the Strand (still open), barnes & Nobles on 18th st, McGraw Hill, and the Dover books section in the Coliseum. I definitely had over 100 math books when I was a student, and I have even more of them now, as well as file cabinets full of copies of journal articles. I don't think this number of math books is unreasonable, especially if you're working on something obscure.

I further suspect that these days an average math graduate student has even more ebooks and articles than you because they download them for free from sites I don't want to mention. (Your insistence on paying for your ebooks may be a little unusual.)

Unless this causes you problems (like, you spend all your money on books and can't afford food, or you have no place to keep your paper books, or you feel obligated to read all the books that you have and have no time for anything else, etc) - I don't think you need to seek professional help or change anything, except:

Two pieces of advice that I want to give - avoid ostentatious displays of wealth in U.S. academia (it may be OK in other contexts) and avoid judging other people.

I have bought all of them and have not downloaded any of them illegally.

I'm sure some of the people who heard you, resented that you have the money to buy all these books, while others don't; and also resented your unprovoked dig at people who download books.

A better answer would have been to say that you have hundreds of books (without elaborating how you got them) and which ones are you favorites.

Answer 8

Movers!

The most probable professional help you are going to need is when you are moving. 100 physical books look manageable and fit even in a small car along with other items. Well, you probably have other (non-math) books as well.

I have a first-hand experience of moving ~4000 books family library and a ~1000 books personal one, both of them few times. Man, these things are HEAVY ! The last time I just called movers - money well spent, including the tip, I am sure.

Your professor probably did some medicore joke, related to how less-educated people traditionally see the owning any ammount of books.

Answer 9

One possible interpretation is that the professor felt uncomfortable because he has far fewer books than you do, despite him having had years more to accumulate them. That implies he's less dedicated to the subject than you, which threatens his status. The only other way he can frame the situation is that you have too many books, and he has the 'normal' number.

Answer 10

Do you need professional help because I buy math books regularly?

As long as you think your habit of buying math books is useful to you, given what your goals in life are, you don't need to seek professional help. Even if many other people besides your professor say that your habit is out of line, and even if they can motivate why that's the case, that is not necessarily a good reason why you should change your habit or seek professional help in doing so.

This is true in general, whether it's about you buying lots of books or something else. You should take serious any arguments presented and then see if that would impact your assessment on whether or not your habit is useful to you. Changing a habit simply to fit in better with how other people are going about their business, is never a good idea.

Just think about what would have happened had “Paul Erdős sought professional help to become a more "normal" person:

Paul Erdős was one of the most brilliant and prolific mathematicians of the twentieth century. He was also, as Paul Hoffman documents in his book The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, a true eccentric—a ‘mathematical monk’ who lived out of a pair of suitcases, dressed in tattered suits, and gave away almost all the money he earned, keeping just enough to sustain his meager lifestyle; a hopeless bachelor who was extremely (perhaps abnormally) devoted to his mother and never learned to cook or even boil his own water for tea; and a fanatic workaholic who routinely put in nineteen-hour days, sleeping only a few hours a night.

Answer 11

When I was early in my studies (physics) I had a real hard time with computing integrals. I simply would not "see" how to go from that weird integral to the nice ones and solve the equation.

Our teacher (a prof that was doing both the lecture and the practical exercises) told us that we need to do at least 50 integrals to "get the vibe" (or something like that).

I did I think 2000 (well no, 2000 is probably the effect of my memory and the trauma, let's say a shitload, which will be probably hundreds) of them (all the books I could find, it was in the very early 90's so no internet) and when the exam came and I was struggling with an integral, he told me in a disappointed tone that he warned us about the 50 to do. I took off my bag the pages and pages of integrals I was training on and he said without smiling

yes, some people should seek medical help to understand when to stop

I think this is close to what was told to you.

I got a great mark, it was his weird way to acknowledge the huge effort I made to try to solve integrals.

You did not mention the country, such wording would not be surprising in a country like France (where what we call "second degree" (in terms of meaning) is part of the interactions between people).

So just relax - he was probably complimenting you.

Answer 12

I read that the famous computer scienist and mathematician Donald E. Knuth owns a large personal library. He is notorisouly known for a series of books with the aim of covering a large portion of computer science and having a very detailed bibligraphy.

In my studies I once visited a professor of statistics from the psychology department. As I entered his flat, books where laying, open, on the corridor. He had a personal library, spanning across multiple rooms, guess way more than 300 books. He was a great person!

I, for myself, also collect books. But I limit myself to hard-to-get and out-of-print ones. I have a collection of some old books from my field that are hard to find otherwise, bought over time at ebay and other online-shops. Furthermore, I would also suppose I have an "above-average" math book collection. In terms of physical books maybe not that much as you own, but I also own a big ebook collection.

Beside from that, I also have, permanently, a collection of 40-50 books loaned from the library. That even caused me some trouble recently in the corona crisis, as libraries shut down and I am not that much around the university anymore. So, I totally understand your passion for books.

If you would tell me about your book collection I would see it very positively, and maybe you can be of great help to your colleagues if they search for literature or need access to a particular book.

Answer 13

Simple answer. Anyone who loves a discipline is likely to want to own a part of it. Whether its owning a piece of a '58 Ford, a 2 million year old fossil, or a piece of the coliseum, tangible objects brings us closer to our fascinations.

Your fascination with owning mathematics books, whether or not you've even read them, is just proof that you are a lover of math.

This is something to be proud of. So go buy more, add to your collection, and tell everyone else to go read comics.

Answer 14

In my opinion you do not need to seek help. It is normal for some to have high amount of interest in their work. Just remember that other things in life are good too. I myself forgot about many things because I was so focused on academics which for me was also math.

It seems to me that two things are important here. Firstly, graduate math and science fields seem to be an extremely cruel, cut throat, rat race today. These fields are highly sought after today and correlated often with power. It is because of this that a wide range of people enter them. And this brings me to my second point. S.T.E.M. today is highly populated with mediocrity at best and more probably what should be called complete incompetence. Often the race for power is more about social dynamics of regular people that otherwise would not have anything to do with the field if it were not for the hope of power and influence. All to often you will hear about relationships and other things, which is an example of how unrelated these things are to competence in S.T.E.M.

So while I don't think you are crazy, the out look is not always good.

On other hand professors have to sometimes deal with witty energetic students, to appear to be outsmarted is often taken poorly, though such behavior on both parties is extremely childish in my opinion and lacking of perspective. The professor is a working person perhaps short on patience, and couldn't entertain such things any longer. So no big deal then.

Also in my opinion the number of books is pointless metric. Only good texts are of value, and any amount of them is always in short supply.