Outline
00:00 - Intro
02:30 - Did anyone know they were writing a classic?
11:07 - When course notes become a textbook
15:36 - Who is the reader? Monographs written for future researchers
20:23 - Students or professors? "Spread spectrum" writing
24:55 - The fourth audience: large language models
36:03 - The discipline of cutting
42:10 - Intellectual economy: the aesthetic and the utilitarian test
50:52 - Formalism versus clarity of thought
58:10 - What makes a book last?
61:39 - Free books and open access
64:13 - Audience questions
71:18 - Should young authors use AI?
73:09 - The classic of 2050: will it be a book at all?
77:00 - Outro

Links
M. Vidyasagar's website: https://iith.ac.in/inst/m.vidyasagar/
Hassan Khalil's website: https://www.egr.msu.edu/~khalil/
Stephen Boyd's website: https://web.stanford.edu/~boyd/
Desoer & Vidyasagar, Feedback Systems: Input-Output Properties: https://doi.org/10.1137/1.9780898719055
Vidyasagar, Nonlinear Systems Analysis: https://doi.org/10.1137/1.9780898719185
Vidyasagar, Learning and Generalization: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3748-1
Calafiore & Campi, "The scenario approach to robust control design": https://doi.org/10.1109/TAC.2006.875041
Khalil, Nonlinear Systems: https://www.egr.msu.edu/~khalil/NonlinearSystems/
Khalil, Nonlinear Control: https://www.egr.msu.edu/~khalil/NonlinearControl/
Khalil, Control Systems: An Introduction (free): https://control.eecs.umich.edu
Kokotović, Khalil & O'Reilly, Singular Perturbation Methods in Control: https://doi.org/10.1137/1.9781611971118
Boyd, El Ghaoui, Feron & Balakrishnan, Linear Matrix Inequalities in System and Control Theory (free): https://web.stanford.edu/~boyd/lmibook/
Boyd & Vandenberghe, Convex Optimization (free): https://web.stanford.edu/~boyd/cvxbook/
Boyd & Vandenberghe, Introduction to Applied Linear Algebra (free): https://web.stanford.edu/~boyd/vmls/
Boyd, Parikh, Chu, Peleato & Eckstein, "Distributed optimization and statistical learning via ADMM": https://doi.org/10.1561/2200000016
CVXPY: https://www.cvxpy.org/

This episode was recorded live on 24 August 2026 at the 23rd IFAC World Congress in Busan, Korea. Special thanks to the congress organizers for hosting the session, and to everyone in the room who participated by sending questions. 

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Acknowledgments and sponsors
This episode was supported by the National Centre of Competence in Research on «Dependable, ubiquitous automation» and the IFAC Activity fund. The podcast benefits from the help of an incredibly talented and passionate team. Special thanks to L. Seward, E. Cahard, F. Banis, F. Dörfler, J. Lygeros, ETH studio and mirrorlake . Music was composed by A New Element.