Dan Rosen

Studying optimization in the wild

Top-shelf texts for a Radioptimist

These works are books I find myself reading often, not only because of their technical depth, but because I love the writing.

Physics

  • Classical Mechanics by John R. Taylor
  • An Introduction to Thermal Physics by Daniel V. Schroeder
  • Electromagnetism by Gerald L. Pollack and Daniel R. Stump
  • Introduction to Fourier Optics by Joseph Goodman
  • Fundamentals of Astrodynamics by Roger R. Bate, Donald D. Mueller, and Jerry E. White

Math

  • Convex Optimization by Stephen Boyd and Lieven Vandenberghe
  • Numerical Optimization by Jorge Nocedal and Stephen Wright
  • Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences by Mary L. Boas

Signal Processing

  • Mathematical Methods and Algorithms for Signal Processing by Todd Moon and Wynn Stirling
  • Multirate Signal Processing for Communication Systems by Frederic J. Harris
  • A Wavelet Tour of Signal Processing: The Sparse Way by Stephane Mallat

Computing

  • Professional Cuda C Programming by John Cheng, Max Grossman, and Ty McKercher
  • Computer Vision: Algorithms and Applications by Richard Szeliski
  • Multiple View Geometry in Computer Vision by Richard Hartley and Andrew Zisserman

Electronics

  • Practical Electronics for Inventors by Paul Scherz and Simon Monk
  • Microwave Engineering by David M. Pozar
  • Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design by Constantine A. Balanis

Practice

  • Global Positioning System: Signals, Measurements, and Performance by Pratap Misra and Per Enge

Personal Reading

I’ve been meaning to keep a list of books I’ve been reading since I’ve finished up school and opened up more time to read/listen.

2026

  • There is No Antimemetics Division by qntm
  • Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
  • Effective Modern C++ by Scott Meyers
  • The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
  • The Prime Number Conspiracy: The Biggest Ideas in Math from Quanta editted by Thomas Lin

2025

  • The New Rules of War by Sean McFate
  • Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
  • Chaos by James Gleick
  • Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson
  • The Science of Information: From Language to Black Holes by Benjamin Schumacher
  • The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
  • How to Invent Everything by Ryan North

2024

  • Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
  • The Art of War by Sun Tzu
  • The Information by James Gleick