/sci/ - Science & Math

I was about to tell you to look for the awesome links in the sticky, and then I realized the sticky is fucking GONE. Where the fuck did it go!!?

khan academy is usually the staple response

also 'foundations and fundamental concepts of mathematics' by howard eves

Would you really want a prof depriving you of the enlightenment that comes with figuring out the meaning of something by just telling you?

>>3280990
looking into both of them now bro. Thanks

>>3281001
A teacher is meant to derive important results in front of his class, or time-allowing guide them through deriving it themselves.

See >>3280974 for books.

Best advice I can give you is that you have to actually want to learn it, and not just the idea of learning it. It takes time and patience. You have to work through exercises and go back to previous chapters when you realize that you haven't fully understood something. This will almost certainly happen because your level of understanding will progress as you learn.

It's not a subject that you can just read through and skim over exercises. You can't learn it through videos on Khan academy, etc.

If you want a road map, it depends on what you want to learn. There are so many different fields and subfields that you can't just set out to learn everything. I'd recommend aiming for calculus first (doing whatever pre-calc you need first) because it comes up in many applications.

So algebra, trigonometry and geometry, then calculus.

Try to keep some sort of schedule too, so that you keep pushing yourself through boring chapters etc, but don't waste your time studying when you're really not paying attention.

In terms of specific books, I'd recommend "How to Solve It" by Polya. Good explanations of how to think your way through problems.

>>3281022

Holy shit. Does that guide really introduce neuroscience without any background reading in cognitive science in general?

You arrogant misguided fucks

I think I more or less am looking into Math more philosophically.
Although, I want to get over my frustrations with it in school. I feel like some kind of fundamental understanding will aid me.

>>3281059

I always liked 'Wittgenstein's Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics'

>>3281046
huh?

>>3280990
KA will only get you started.

>>3281661

Then what else do you recommend?

>>3281674
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Analysis-Maxwell-Rosenlicht/dp/0486650383/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&
qid=1308998129&sr=8-1

>>3281695

You guys aren't getting what OP wants. He wants to change his views on math and thus his paradigm in general by seeing trends he didn't see before. You guys are handing him lists and concepts to memorize and I honestly don't have a better fucking solution because this very problem plagues me as well. Your best option wouldn't be in textbooks or instructionals I can guarantee that. A history of mathematics and physics and the autobiographies of the great thinkers may be more beneficial because they attempt to explain how the creative thought brought mathematics to where it is.

>>3281731

You obviously haven't read that Wittgenstein book I recommended. The whole book is Wittgentein saying that mathematics is bullshit while Turing argues for formalism.

You can't get any more 'what OP wants' than that

Well, you're obviously fucking correct. Might read.

>>3280980
>"What the fuck is this going to do for me?"

I always hate this attitude. Yes, you are probably never going to use calculus in everyday life, unless you go into a field that uses it, but you can literally say that about most fields. You don't NEED to have read Pride & Prejudice and understood it's themes, and you don't NEED to know how an Ox-bow lake is formed. It's only because teachers introduce maths to you with practical purposes in mind, because it's easier to understand.

But if you want meaning, I'd recommend learning Physics as well. Physics is the most math-heavy of the sciences, and will use concepts that you learn of in Maths for important things, like imaginary numbers.

study the history of mathematics

if anything, mathematicians LOVE to cover up their tracks and make things unnecessarily hard for anyone wanting to learn (because, hey, it was hard for them to learn so it should be hard for... and thus the cycle repeats).

Anyway, studying the history will give you an insight into why and how certain fields of mathematics developed

>>3281809

Physics is bullshit. The whole field is inherited from people who knew what they were doing. Now it's a bunch of nerds solving puzzles that mean jack shit, who lack the capacity to understand the implications of what they do.

I will revel, absolutely revel in the say when you fucks find a result you don't understand, and throw your hands up in the air because you lack the capacity to think critically.

well, according to sum teaching methodologies, they're supposed to dump the whole experience at you and then, at the end, make the sense out of it, so you won't follow blindly some pre-set rules, 'cause that would impair your learning capabilities.

unfortunately the latter part never happens, including the univ, because i dunno. it just doesn't. the point is - other people won't help you with your personal growth - let it be in educational institutions, or corporate environment. the only place that actually cares are math clubs where they train you for competitions, but that's a drop in the bucket.

as for the books:

How to Solve by G. Polya
Problem Solving Through Problems
Mathematics: Its Content, Methods and Meaning

are more than enough to get you started. buy them, you won't be disappointed, or check the stickie thread for links to try them out.

>>3281827
Did a Physicist sleep with your girlfriend or something?

Go to university and take a math course taught by a professor and talk to them during office hours and they will be more than happy to go more in depth on whatever math stuff you are interested in. You just have to be willing to tell them to slow down once they go over your head.

>>3281844 Once, not if.

>>3281870
if you are implying there is a chance they won't you really need to get rid of your ego. Being able to discuss mathematics requires a lot of vocabulary you need to understand precisely and won't always be intuitive just hearing the words.