so far, the best approach for me has been to just go to class. even though usa universities are bullshit and lower level classes cater to the machinery of university economy, every engineer and math phd i've spoken to has confirmed that once you surpass the calculus 1 milestone, the classes become much more interesting.

i tried to find a family math tutor, somebody i could hire to just come to my house and talk to my family about math and the philosophy of maths. the few people who responded thought i was crazy. apparently 'tutor' no longer means private teacher, but instead 'person who helps kids prepare for standardized tests'. it's gross.

my personal experience has been that it's necessary to be patient with the system, because if you stick to it long enough you will end up being surrounded by people as passionate about it, and whose passions and thoughts will drive you further.

just had a friend recommend two books to me, btw. don't know if it matters to you:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Solve-It-Mathematic...069111966X

http://www.amazon.com/Primer-Mathematics-Comp...B005LQBUT8

i'm also reading this book called 'the math gene', can't remember the author name.

anyway, like any linguistic skill, just saturate yourself in it, right?

You are SO right. I tried to take the teaching route, because when you have a degree like mine, everyone says you have to teach. Teaching is bullshit now. I should disclaim myself by saying, I support formative assessment (21st century learning). Fuck standardized testing. Teachers in Masters programs for education, whine more than gamers. All they do is blame:

-No Child Left Behind Act
-Parents
-Students

They also whine about paperwork. The whining is unbearable. But, just like you, they are right in most regards. There's often some truth behind complaint. We have options now. Thanks to schools like MIT and Stanford, we can learn things for free. Some people think education is a business. I personally do not agree. I know more people with assloads of debt, because they took the school route, and can't find jobs, than I know friends. They majored in something like liberal arts or performance arts. Why do universities offer these degrees? To keep us in school. I support education. I think education should be available to everyone.

Some of my friends are engineers. When I ask them what it took to become an engineer, they all give me different responses. If my top is too low, or I bend a certain way, they will tell me whatever they think I want to hear. If I wear turtle neck, talk about netcode and look at them like I haven't been fucked in 10 years, they tell the truth. The foreign transplants say it was 6 hours of mathematics a day. The Americans say it was their love for music, and ability to follow orders. The Mexican Americans say it was gaming. The list goes on and on. I'd like to be a hardware engineer. I don't think I need to go back to school for that. I used school for access to academia and discounted software. With open courseware, why do I need to acquire $45k+ in debt to look good on paper?

i don't think my top has ever been too low to get an honest answer, so i'll just say that it takes a lot of hard work and dedication, but mostly focus. in some ways this is an impediment for a woman, because human nature and cultural states allow for women to be so easily pitied and consoled. it would be easy for any woman to get out of a particularly hard class and have some female or male friend or family member or dad or whatever tell her it's okay, don't worry, blah blah. maybe this is just an ignorant simplification on my part, but my opinion is that if you want to pursue mathematics to a greater degree than the median set by the establishment, you should limit your contact with people who will reward any potential whining or self-pity.

my opinion is that if you have the desire to obtain the mathematical education necessary to understand electrical engineering and computer sciences, you just have to put yourself in the right circumstances to support those goals. it's really a question of discipline: what are you willing to give up in pursuit of your goals, and for how long are you willing to give it up?

there are fraternal type bonds that support these sorts of intellectual developments, and not just in the typical college 'fraternity' sense. there's an inherent competitive and shit-talking nature to male relationships that is almost an ironic form of challenging support, whereas women are exposed to the 'support' of men and women who accept their failures without criticism and validate their emotional states in anticipation of some sexual/emotional reward.

want to be a hardware engineer? i don't know, because i'm not a hardware engineer, but i suggest distancing yourself from anybody who pities or babies you. these are intellectually demanding pursuits that require high levels of discipline, skepticism, and criticism.

and by impediment for women, i just mean that there are a LOT of forces at work to detract women from intellectual goals. i don't have a problem with this inherently, because i don't have some agenda of forwarding women in the sciences or something ridiculous like that, but if your goal is to be involved with the sciences, you just have to recognize human nature and act to counter it.

It's easy to get distracted. I am so sick of explaining myself. Just look at this thread and observe how many people asked me why I'd like to learn mathematics. Why does it matter? Rhetorical question.

I'd rather not run with Wendy. If you catch my drift.

Or maybe they just wanted to know why you wanted to learn 'higher mathematics' for seemingly no reason, with the hope of giving better advice than "go grind PDEs for six months". And it turns out that in fact you only wanted to learn it because you had the misconception you needed to master the math before doing what you actually want (physics or hardware engineering), so they were right to ask.

I think you should re-read my block of text. You won't get an honest answer with a low top. Did you ever read Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin?

my point is that i don't have tits, so the engineers and phds i've talked to about this haven't played to my infantile desire for social affection in order to position themselves between my legs.

Must be nice.

please. you wouldn't be flaunting your gender on esr if your position were so awful.

How does one flaunt their gender on a gaming forum? Who says you're not female? Just because you said you don't have tits, doesn't exactly mean you're male, now does it? How's the ESR mobile application coming?

is the english major asking me to define a word? and who said anybody said i'm not female? as far as i know, nobody is working on an esr mobile application.

also, do you know what it's like to be taken seriously by an engineer? ugh.

The question here is: are tutors really necessary these days with the internet? one can become good at anything, with the endless information you can find specially in videoformat which is always easier than the abstration of reading it on a book. Or maybe this doesn't work with math? I suck at math so I dont know.

in my experience, yes. maybe not for teaching, but at least for direction. the amount of information available can be detrimental. how can somebody learning math have the knowledge to be critical of the quality and accuracy of the endless resources they'll stumble upon? how can they know that what they're learning is appropriate for their level of knowledge?

as far as videos, maybe that's just personal preference, but i get really frustrated when i search for information on a topic and all that can be found are videos. it's much more difficult to scan a video for pertinent information than it is to glance through a page or two of words looking for keywords, or just getting an impression of whether or not the information is valuable. videos just seem like a waste of time to me, forced to learn and absorb information at somebody else's pace of instruction.

but i get really frustrated when i search for information on a topic and all that can be found are videos. it's much more difficult to scan a video for pertinent information than it is to glance through a page or two of words looking for keywords, or just getting an impression of whether or not the information is valuable

this

Read a book.

The interesting happens when you start applying your skills.

I've noticed many people who express pride and anger concerning their degrees as they look upon others who don't have a degree but produce works in the same area of study. Maybe they feel that they should be looked upon more highly then their peers regardless of the quality of their work.

I'm not saying one path is better than another. Perhaps it depends on the individual. I suggest you set aside such concerns. If you're really serious about learning math than you will do it one way or another.

Pls start with elementary geometry and algebra.

I do read books. Have you ever heard of Accelerated Reader? I was one. You know why? Because the schools I went to had some pretty "business" savvy teachers, that said: if you read x amount of books in y amount of days, then do a project to prove you read it, we'll let you go to the library and play games on the computers.

The computers were Macs. I learned how to type on a Mac, too.

I went to private primary schools until 5th grade. In 5th grade, I went to public school. Public schools in Texas are plagued with issues.

http://shapleigh.org/system/reporting_documen...ments3.pdf

You studied business in 5th grade? That's very impressive. You must be doing really well. Please tell me more.

I live next to Lockheed Martin and have seen many advanced aircraft personally (and other classified technology). I know many pilots and engineers. Texas is also where Quake was invented.

Furthermore, I hold phds in applied mathematics and physics (St. Petersburg State University). My area of expertise is orbital mechanics.

I'd love to stay and chat but I really need to be getting back to my research.

You missed the point entirely. I'd love to chat when you're done measuring your dick on a gaming forum.

My what? I was only trying to help. I'm not sure what you were trying to communicate with your response but don't hesitate to contact me if you need any help.

lmao at this response

:::::::::::::::D

...you basically answered your own question. why are you asking for help when u have not applied yourself? It doesn't matter if its a class something you "LIKE" or "DISLIKE". If you cannot apply yoursef, u cannot succeed at anyhing.... ever. There's always going to be irrelevant shitty ass classes in college u have to take in order to graduate. College doesn't necessarily dictate what you'll do in life, it just gets you used to the workload and building your life (socially). I would have recommended taking General Sciences when u started out. I don't understand why you'd pick something as specific as english right off the bat if u weren't 100% sure about it (and didn't a give a shit, as you said you played games 24/7).

https://www.coursera.org/ find something which fits your needs and sign up / do it?

Also https://www.khanacademy.org/ is really good for math stuff.

Thank you for actually answering the question.

And I'd like to learn english literature. All of it.
Why do you want to learn mathematics in the first place?

Because he can't make money doing english lit (harsh but true lol).

http://www.gutenberg.org/

Also, if you have access to an Apple portable device running at least iOS 6 (I think) or later, you can download a ton of free books in the iBooks app.

If you or your school/work has access to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary), it's the best place to start as far as dictionaries go.

This link is free: http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/

If you don't have access to the OED, type "define [word here]" without the quotes and brackets in Google. Google should return the definition of the word you're looking for, and the etymology.

Example: define differential

dif·fer·en·tial
ˌdifəˈrenCHəl/
technical
adjective
adjective: differential

1.
of, showing, or depending on a difference; differing or varying according to circumstances or relevant factors.
"the differential achievements of boys and girls"
synonyms: different, dissimilar, contrasting, unalike, divergent, disparate, contrastive More
"the differential achievements of boys and girls"
antonyms: similar
constituting a specific difference; distinctive.
"the differential features between benign and malignant tumors"
synonyms: distinctive, distinguishing More
"the differential features of benign and malignant tumors"
antonyms: similar
Mathematics
relating to infinitesimal differences or to the derivatives of functions.
of or relating to a difference in a physical quantity.
"a differential amplifier"

noun
noun: differential; plural noun: differentials

1.
a difference between amounts of things.
"the differential between gasoline and diesel prices"
Mathematics
an infinitesimal difference between successive values of a variable.
a set of gears allowing a vehicle's driven wheels to revolve at different speeds when going around corners.
noun: differential gear; plural noun: differential gears

Origin


tldr:
http://www.gutenberg.org/
http://www.apple.com/apps/ibooks/
http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/
http://www.google.com/help/features.html (scroll down to Dictionary Definitions).

That was sarcasm but thx anyway =)
When it comes to mathematics books most of them are in university libraries and in library genesis (google it yourself - it's warez) but you need to know what you are looking for.

I'm asking because I need to know what makes you interested in mathematics so I can propose you something (or talk you out of it).

If I were interested in physics then I'd start with history and philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of nature. If you can find good books on these topics then you can understand the connection between mathematics, physics and nature and understand what is mathematics. This will help you decide yourself what do you want to learn. Unfortunately I can't recommend anything brief.

If you want to learn physics for different reasons - tell me them and maybe I can suggest you something.

I reckon he just watched good will hunting.

I reckon she's right. I have a weakness for Southie Boston accents.

Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein are excellent, albeit difficult, readings with respect to the relationship between math, knowledge, language, and psychology.

Take junior college classes or something. Worked for me.

wanting to learn math... kids these days!!

" The friends I have made in video games mean more to me than my friends IRL. "

Thank you so much gisele!

<3 Stas

I would type up a response , but first i must ask: why DO you need to learn "advanced math" and how "advanced" does it need to be?

So I can learn physics afterwards. Shouldn't I start with math?

if you wanna learn physics than watch the lectures from Walter Lewin! (MIT)

You don't need a tremendous amount math to understand physics. You need quite a lot of math to use and progress physics but not necessarily in order to understand it.

Ok. Thank you!

P.S. - http://grammarist.com/usage/than-then/

ah ye nice spot ;)
I take too little time posting when I'm actually doing other stuff at the same time ;))

No worries ;)

I recommend you skip all the videos and theoretical nonsense and get down to crunching numbers.

Knowledge of 90% of physics doesn't really require much of math skills. Just basic understanding of additions, multiplications and you need to know and understand how vectors work. Basic trigonometry is required for calculating values of vectors.

It certainly does not require math skills of solving problems, because physics formulas are already boiled down to the plug-and-solve equations.

Pardon my lack of creativity here, but these subjects are sequential, methodical disciplines that must be embedded to deep level of thinking in that very particular order. For this you will either need to get a book or an e-course. If it could be done fast, people wouldn't spend 3-7 years studying it.

Physics is separated by branches that are ever loosely connected theoretically.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branches_of_physics

1. get a book about 1 branch
2. read slow enough to understand EVERY sentence. Physics has an easy snowball effect where if you skip over one thing, one topic later you will find yourself drowning in questions because every sentense is a must-know and abide LAW.
3. As you find math bumps review them on youtube or something.

Awesome, thank you. Physics intimidates me. I am done being intimidated though. ;)

If you want to learn physics, go learn physics. Learn whatever Maths you need on the way

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| User Mail
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| From: Derek Wayland
| Subject: MFS Compressor Numbers
| Date: 11-02-2145
| Body:
|
| Walter,
|
| I wanted to personally thank you for your latest modification proposal for
| the dilation matrix. The boys here at CPU have crunched your numbers and
| after some deliberation we've agreed that this is the most fantastically
| bogus theory that we've ever seen.
|
| If you are remotely interested in not getting your gnome-loving
| dragons-slaying power-leveling ass fired, I'd suggest you lay off the
| role-playing and learn some basic math.
|
| Good luck on your next review :)
| -Derek
|
`-PDA UPDATE------------------------------------------------------------------

good luck proving theorems.

Will proving theorems teach me to create my own luck?

What do you mean? I thought you wanted to learn mathematics. If you can prove theorems, then you've already completed your goal.

Will proving theorems teach me to create my own luck?

This comment about creating your own luck is confusing. What kind of luck do you want to create?

You obviously won't be alone while working with mathematics. Don't worry. You'll be just fine.

Nah you need to stay up all night for that.

Calculus, Vol 1 and Vol 2 by Tom M. Apostol

I can get you the pdfs of this books. The only thing missing in this books is Fourier analysis. I have studied through these, and I totally recommend it.

The reviews for this book are superb! I signed up for a Electrical Engineering course that starts Jan. 20th. The pre-req states "knowledge of calculus". These books will be very helpful! I live near a really cool used bookstore that may have a copy. Thank you for offering, though ;)

These books are fucking expensive tho )). Nevertheless, feel free to ask for the pdfs if you want.

why do you want to learn it? you probably wont get very far unless you genuinely like it. i'd start with Weird's suggestions.

dude,

math is useless,

eot.

Ya because math was never used to create this website, database, operating system, hardware, internet, etc.

Very useless indeed.

it wasnt. all IT, which uses math as a help.

pure theoretical math is useless

All modern math is "theoretical".

Abstract branches of mathematics are usefull for applied ones.
For example:

measure theory -> probability -> banking, statistics, experiment methodology etc.
functional analysis -> partial differential equations -> modelling (anything from cells to weather)

On the other hand some branches of mathematics found important applications many years after they were developed:
number theory, abstract algebra -> cryptography

Another very important aspect of "theoretical" mathematics is developing the language of mathematics. The reason why some problems were impossible to solve in the past and are easy nowadays is that we have better language to deal with them. Human brain has limited capabilities and some problems can be too complex to grasp. This is where mathematical language comes in - it lets us simplify, structurize, modularize and better understand these complex problems. Every science takes advantage of it.

When it comes to IT - don't forget that informatics started as branch of abstract mathematics. And there wouldn't be any IT without informatics and advanced physics.

why do you even bother, he's just trolling...

tl;dr version?

If a quake beginner tries to do bridge to rail jump, and fails 99 times and then succeeds at his 100th try, would you say that those 99 failed attempts were useless?

depends if he can do it constantly after.

Of course after he solved a problem, he can solve the same problem again.
But when he finally gets to rail, he might encounter another, probably even harder jump, which he has to spend another 100 or more tries. And then he gets to next place and there's another tricky jump to make, etc.
So those tries, 99.99% of which are complete fail, but which eventually open a multi-step tricky path to entirely new places, are they useless?

yes, it was luck.

b2r is pure mechanical skill. math is not.

It uses theoretical math as it's fundamental basis..

See Boolean Algebra, Lambda calculus, First-order Predicate Calculus among a laundry-list of other math subfields.

Like number of people said, you should look up into Physics-related math. There are bound to be field-specific math books, things like "mathematics for physicists" (I pulled the title out of my ass and there was one lol) etc. I bought "essential mathematics for economic analysis" for my field.

Also the way my degree is set in economics, "the obi way" (make it up as you go) is possible for me. We have mandatory minor in economic maths, which teaches from basic algebra to derivative, optimitazion and all that junk. I was a humanist in school but I have been able to become okayish math student.

Some things I've found

- Sometimes the hieroglyphs, greek letters, that make mathematics seem intimidating. Don't be discouraged when you see them, because the logic can be easy, it's sometimes a thing you have already learnt, just different notation.

- Only geniuses can proof some things, like how did someone come up with 2nd-degree- formula. The rest of us just make use of them.

- Also dont be afraid to look up the net, I understood logarithm much better from some math is fun children's site.

One should look for youtube tutorials before anything else!

Sometimes the hieroglyphs, greek letters, that make mathematics seem intimidating. Don't be discouraged when you see them, because the logic can be easy, it's sometimes a thing you have already learnt, just different notation.

You nailed it. I tried to read CZM's dissertation once. The portion that was on CalTech's website for a time. I Googled some of the math phrases to see examples...I have never felt so stupid in all of my life. The symbols...the symbols.

MIT has free video lectures of many of its courses:
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/audio-video-courses/#mathematics

Check out the single variable calculus and linear algebra courses for a start.
First year courses are usually quite basic and cover material that's already teached in high school.

Also if you're considering physics, you should really check out the lectures of Walter Lewin. The first one gives a really good overview over classical mechanics and also doesn't require much preknowledge:
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-01-physi...fall-1999/

stop talking to yourself!

What a fascinating topic to find at ESR.

:3

one does not just simply learn math...

Intro:
http://www.clarku.edu/~djoyce/trig/
http://www.madscitech.org/theoretical.html

Gets kinda advanced:
http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~hooft101/theorist.html
Usefulness for a B.S. educated hardware engineer probably stops at or just before quantum mechanics. The "primary mathematics" section is realistically a few years for most people. Quantum mechanics is usually junior-level college.

It would help a lot to find a tutor/coach on Craigslist or a grad student from a local university and meet with them every week or so. It will keep you from spending too much or too little time on each topic. It's important to do enough variety of problems to translate the understanding gained from reading onto paper.

It's probably a good idea to jump in over your head occasionally and then backtrack once you see what the required things are.

If you're serious about becoming a hardware engineer the 3rd link starts getting off-topic fast. The only realistic routes I see (and I'm not an engineer so who knows) are to learn enough math/eng to take some continuing ed college courses and get an internship, or enter a master's program. If you can prove you have some math background (GRE exam, a few comm. col. calculus / discrete math / differential equations courses), some schools might not care what your degree is in. Writing skills could also be a plus. Technical writing for hardware engineering for example.

Discrete Math and Differential Equations :x

Thank you for the helpful links and information. BM'ed :D

If you want to learn maths to later learn physics, just skip math and start with physics and then pick up maths you need along the way.

If you wanna learn physics I think the best books out there are The Feynman Lectures, they will not only teach you the subject but will also make you fall in love with it and provoke a lot of thought. These are very simple introductory texts but at the same time Feynman always manages to find interesting aspects and problems in seemingly simple and obvious phenomena and ideas.

Also I have a really nice book about PDE's lying around. It also has a short introduction of ODE's. I found it extremely easy to learn from this book compared to a lot of other texts.IT's very well written and the problem sets are quite nice to guide you through. (I will look up the authors tomorrow)

If you want a heavier taste of physics read the Landau and Lifschitz books. They might not be the best written books in a way that develops a coherent way of developing ideas and teaching. (They often sort of cheat by knowing the answer and then showing it's correct, but that is how lots of physics are done really) They are quite involved texts and are often more aimed at postgrads. However, Landau was a mathematical genius and I like reading his stuff.

Suggesting someone skip calc and read landau lifschitz is kind of a bad idea.

True, I guess by the time I was writing it I forgot how I started.

first english literatuer? now mathematics?
go into some applied computer science field ...
real world things, the wealth of the nation was built by engineers not by theoretical blabla

Funny you should mention project management. Some of the male engineers I know IRL are project managers. The female engineers couldn't hack it in the engineering world (seem to quit after 2 years) to work in HR. Now, kindly fuck off instead of concerning yourself with what I'm doing.

you clearly have no clue what you are talking about. keep serving fast food.

The road map would be

Basic math like symbols, numbers, basic algebra with numbers -> intermediate math like functions, relations, maps, differentiation, basic integration -> advanced math like combinatorics, probability,, normal distribution, differential equations, analysis in n-dimensional space, measure theory, Lebesgue integral, integration of 'hard' functions, Galois theory, solvability of polynomial equations

Ah yes, the widely renowned field of Mathematics known as "normal distribution"

Yes, it opens up indeed a wide field of statistics since the Central Limit Theorem states a kind of universality for the normal distribution. Tests on normality are fundamentally important in many branches of mathematics.

in what branch of mathematics would you ever need to test normality, apart from statistics?

Would be correct if we were living in 1800's

As a mathematician you always stand on the shoulders of giants, so to speak. For instance, Fermat's 'last theorem' was formulated around 1640 but could not be proven before 1994 (then using modern tools like elliptic curves which were unknown in Fermat's time).

Yes, you stand on their shoulders and from that point you advance. By itself it's not "advanced maths" at all, it's only most basic beginning and most kids who pursue mathematical career already know all this stuff by the end of high school.

High school kids know Galois theory? wat

Galois himself was essentially a high school kid when he developed that theory, so there's nothing impossible in merely learning it at that age, and it's definitely not uncommon in specialized math schools.

I didnt say it was impossible, I just can't imagine high school kids learning what is usually a final year undergraduate/first year graduate topic.

"it's definitely not uncommon in specialized math schools."

Even if you could find some (which I doubt) that doesnt mean "most kids who pursue mathematical career" know it by the end of highschool.

Which math high schools? Which country? Do they have a website?

it's so nice to see that all the things nowadays are high school ...
in my master studies I had a course on cryptology and there was the RSA cryptography, and the professor talking about it always said how easy it is etc., funny the three people inventing it got the turing award (equivalent to noble prize, but for computer science) ...

but the thing is, although most of the studied people say all these things are high school ... 99,9 % of them would never have invented it themselves ... isn't that FUNNY? :-)

only afterwards after it was showed to them, and they only grasp it maybe 33 %, they immediately say "EAzEEY ST0FF, SO TR1VI1AL!!!"

I don't see what is your intended point.
A lot of insanely hard inventions are obvious in retrospect, that's what allows us to progress relatively easily: we can learn in months what took previously thousands of years, so that we then not waste time repeating our ancestors but instead spend time on pondering new insanely hard things which future generations will find so obvious that they learn it in high school in their turn. In fact, for progress to continue, we HAVE to move to schools things which previously were available only to ultra geniuses, so that by the time kids finish school, they can start researching modern science, not science of 500 years ago.
Also a lot of people are dumb and never invent their own genius thing, yet still capable of learning and using stuff invented by others. Should we act as genetic police, allowing only true creative geniuses in schools and banning everyone who can merely learn and understand, but not create?

so true

starting from scratch I'd say the better way would simply be:

algebra, geometry, trigonometry, math logic/basic proofs/basic combinatorics, linear algebra/calculus, multivariable calculus

this is pretty much as far as a "necessary" order can be specified since most of these are inter-related and require knowledge of all the previous topics. Except for linear algebra of course, but I don't disagree with it being taught after students have already gone geometry -> calc because all they usually get to in highschools is applications of it like gaussian elimination (if that, I didn't even get trig in highschool, much less calc or linear alg) and lin alg doesn't really get fun until you actually get into dealing with vector spaces and matrix theory, so it's better to just dive into it at once.

But anyway, these topics give you all the initial tools you'd need, and then you can pick any one of many different areas of math to explore like diffeq/more multivar and their applications, various areas of discrete math like graph theory/number theory/set theory, etc.

my maffs is propa good n ting