/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.10166663]

Some weeb MIT Math PhD candidate made a doc explaining the basics of higher math from Basic Algebra all the way to Schemes in Algebraic Geometry


And its actually pretty good

http://web.evanchen.cc/napkin.html

[Anonymous No.10166669]

>>10166663
I was hoping it would be illustrated with anime girls. Still pretty good tho

[Anonymous No.10166679]

>>10166663
Thanks for the doc, OP

[Anonymous No.10166682]

>>10166663

WHY the FUCK is advanced mathematics given the name BASIC ALGEBRA. Why are mathematicians so bad at naming things? BASIC ALGEBRA to me is something that should be incredibly BASIC AND ELEMENTARY!!!!! Call it ADVANCED Algebra, not BASIC.

THANK YOU,

YOURS TRULY,

BRAINLET.

[Anonymous No.10166713]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzsKH9xBcZkdWEc5cm5LXzRscjA

[Anonymous No.10166823]

How would I teach myself to this level? I'm a couple chapters into spivak.

[Anonymous No.10166828]

>>10166823
not a mathematician but isn't this a book for high school students thus, just do the book?

[Anonymous No.10167079]

>>10166682
This. Mathematicians are terrible at naming things

[Anonymous No.10167127]

>>10166663
>weeb
anon, where did you find that info?

[Anonymous No.10167142]

>>10166663
Hi Evan.

This does look pretty good, thank you for posting.

[Anonymous No.10167146]

>>10167127
He's linked his MAL account on his website

[Anonymous No.10167149]

>>10166663
>You are not God. You cannot keep everything in your head.

Fuck you Evan, I'll show you you piece of shit.

[Anonymous No.10167154]

>>10167146
lmao what a weeb

[Anonymous No.10167171]

>>10166663
This is actually a very interesting and ambitious approach, but is a bit disorganized, it would benefit from starting with more rigorous definitions and expanding on the (really high quality) examples later.

[Anonymous No.10167225]

>links to his MAL account that includes shows such as kissxsis
This guy has balls of steel.

[Anonymous No.10167347]

>>10167225

Erdos was basically a homeless weirdo high on amphetamines 24/7, so this is mild.

[Anonymous No.10167364]

>>10166663
Cool stuff! I'm planning to do the same but with my CS studies and explain in very high depth exactly what happens from when a user enters my website to exactly what the website does (that being an AI game, pretty much). Like, start at the 0, 1 and NAND gates and get to the neural network at the end, covering machine code, networking basics, scripting languages, REST api, TCP and all that stuff.

But.. well.. I'm lazy, so we'll see about that.

[Anonymous No.10167436]

>>10167142
he unironically probably browses /sci/

[Anonymous No.10167459]

>>10166679
>Sustained fire from the A10s cannon is powerful enough to counteract the thrust of the engines
>They've been trying to decomission it for decades but can't because its too good at its job
Warthog is love, warthog is life.

[Anonymous No.10167481]

>>10166682
Because the algebra you learn in high school and beforehand is really not pure algebra, but a hollow shell of it in which you gain an understanding of binary operations and general arithmetic abstracted with the inclusion of “variables.”

Algebra is the study of structure, so basic algebra outlines the basic structures. These structures; sets, groups, rings, fields, etc., are all simple topics. However, they exist in the domain of “advanced mathematics” solely because we would otherwise have no intuition for what they mean if we had not previously extrapolated upon the meaning and use of elemtary operations, which takes a significant amount of time for brainlets.

[Anonymous No.10167485]

>>10167459
They should replace the engines with two gaui cannons, this way it can shoot at arrival to target And double the hail while leaving.

[Anonymous No.10168875]

>0.999 instead of a k < 1
Come on lad, you're better than this

[Anonymous No.10169098]

>>10167225
>Black Bullet 9/10
>Kiss x Sis 8/10
>B-Gata H-Kei 8/10
This guy isn't even trying to hide his power level. Also Steins;Gate below no game no life, fate/stay, and zank-you no speak english terror? What kind of supreme shit taste is this?

[Anonymous No.10169116]

>>10169098
I still really like steins gate for the characters/interactions but I could understand someone being more annoyed than I was at dumb/arbitrary time travel rules.

[Anonymous No.10169126]

>>10169116
>dumb/arbitrary time travel rules.
Eh, it's the opposite for me, after reading/watching enough sci-fi to see how time travel is almost universally done poorly the fact that stein;gate get a version of time travel that is at least somewhat coherent is a major plus for me. For the most part I can rationalize things so that there are no real paradoxes.

[Anonymous No.10169179]

>>10167171
>starting with rigorous definitions
>for high school students
You really have no idea what you’re talking about. Stop posting and consider suicide.

[Anonymous No.10169182]

>>10167364
>not starting with Quantum electrodynamics

[Anonymous No.10169206]

>>10167459
Engineers take notes

[Anonymous No.10169216]

>>10169098
>>Black Bullet 9/10
excellent tastes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8u9w9GsXN4

[Anonymous No.10169243]

>>10168875
>d(T(p),T(q))<0.99d(p,q)
what if p and q are the same?

[Anonymous No.10169296]

>>10169126
The girl turning into a boy because of food triggered my autism. Hard. And not because the food might have influenced the sex of the baby, but because they looked the same either gender. I mean, come on!

[Anonymous No.10169706]

>>10169179
What? Have you read his book? He starts by using notations high-school students couldn't possibly know.

The current problem with the text is that he starts each chapter with incomplete (even informally) definitions of concepts, he keeps using the concepts in examples. Even the keenest of readers would not be able to follow the text without external references.

[Anonymous No.10169709]

>>10169179
In addition, I feel that I am owed an apology for the harsh language you've used.

[Anonymous No.10169742]

>>10169098
>>10169216
>Black Bullet
Good shit

[Anonymous No.10169762]

>>10166682
Because real advanced math takes away your sanity and once you cross that line you're forever doomed to think and speak mumbo jumbo that only fellow wretched souls are able to comprehend

[Anonymous No.10169774]

lol

[Anonymous No.10169781]

>>10166663
Fucking hell this guy is autism supreme. Props to his autism for getting him so far.

[Anonymous No.10169787]

>>10166823
From what little I have seen of it it does seem to be aimed at high school students, but the sort ot students who have dones math competition. You pretty much just need to be familiar with what is a proof which people doing math competitions learn very well by doing. The old fashioned way of learning this would be with any old halfway decent high school geometry book (you could probably even use euclid's elements) I can't recommend any because the one I learned from is not in english. But if you are already reading something like Spivak that seems more than enough for prerequisites.
The notes look very nice to me but also not very clear what the objective is, this seems like fairly standard mathematical curriculum material, which has been covered in many good books already so it's not so clear why it was written.

[Anonymous No.10169789]

>>10166663
Good job Evan, it looks beautiful.

[Anonymous No.10169822]

As someone who teaches maths and remembers his iwn struggles with basic notions, I do not like the book, although it will certainly be useful for many as people lack googling skills.
The niche is already well represented by books for physicists. Adding Homs here and there does nothing for the reader when the author can't even properly motivate the introduction of the notion of differential forms. Much, much better motivation and intuitive insight can be found in accessible general books aimed at mathematicians (say, Wu or Lee) and physicists (e. g. Frenkel, Arnold, Schutz), let alone books on specific areas (for instance, Bachman's book on differential forms). Not mentioning the plethora of free pdfs and lecture notes floating around on anything from quantum gates to de Rham cohomology.

Quantum bits should be just removed as they are confusing and give no insight (the author just repeats "If you think that's weird, it gets worse", like, 3 times) and are better explained in, say, Nielsen and Chuang (the author used pictures from this book anyway).
And it's weird seeing quantum computations as an example of vector space application but when it comes to representation theory, there is nothing on the Lorentz/Poincare invariance.

The OP book makes some good pedagogical points (for instance about the derivative) but I definitely can't recommend yet based on my personal experience in education and teaching.
Hopefully it will be improved on.

[Anonymous No.10169905]

>>10169706
>>10169709
if you can't handle the bantz on the internetz mayhaps >>>/reddit/ would welcome you

[Anonymous No.10169922]

>>10166682
Because mathematicians are retarded.

>randomly download Lang's book titled "Algebra" off libgen
>took abstract algebra last semester, this couldn't be that bad
>it might as well be Cantonese

Also
>Lang's "Basic Mathematics"
>is actually junior and senior high school level math

[Anonymous No.10169996]

based

[Anonymous No.10170009]

>>10169182
That's not computer science, that's electronic science or whatever i don't know. CS starts where we get either a 1 or a 0. It's someone elses job to figure out the best way of representing a 1 or 0 in a physical medium.

[Anonymous No.10170018]

>>10169922
>>10166682
Because it is indeed basic algebra. Stuff like fundamental groups or Infinitesimal generators are very basic building blocks of modern mathematics, just like basic geometry, in the modern sense, is about manifolds, differential forms, and cotangent bundles, and not about circles and triangles.

[Anonymous No.10170022]

>>10166682
>>10169922
BASIC does not mean “easy” you illiterate fucktards, it simply means that is the BASIS
Just like an ELEMENTAR PROOF does not mean that it’s simple, it just means that it is done with UNSOPHISTICATED tools

[Anonymous No.10170230]

I feel like this guy wrote this book for himself, specifically the high school version of himself, as a window into higher mathematics. Sort of like, if he could go back in time and wow his high school self with all the stuff he learned later on.
I feel like a lot of authors of textbooks get started by this same motivation, but it's the based ones who realize they could reach a wider audience than just themselves. And I don't think Chen here realizes that.

[Anonymous No.10170303]

>>10169905
>t. Can't handle level 2 irony posting

Niggar we often have 6 levels here, you need to shape up

[Anonymous No.10170305]

>>10170230
He did write it for himself, but sad thing is there are some really good aspects to it.

[Anonymous No.10170361]

Evan is a great guy, but I tend to think the napkin is a little poorly written compared to the undergrad texts it is meant to supplement. Definitely no more than a companion.
It's pretty impressive for a grad student though.

[Anonymous No.10170469]

>>10169905
Rude

[Anonymous No.10171125]

>doki doki literature club

[Anonymous No.10171297]

>arch user
>comments on github include "Freaking MIT uses TeX Live 2009. Please go die in a hole."
he seems to be a reasonable person desu

[Anonymous No.10171331]

>>10166663
imagine the smell

[Anonymous No.10171785]

>>10170361
>It's pretty impressive for a grad student though.
No it's not. As a grad you need much deeper understanding of those subjects - even for physics, let alone pure math. As an undergrad you won't understand much because he gives half-assed or no motivation. A book for the author to stroke his ego and to add it to his portfolio/webpage.

[Anonymous No.10171944]

I dont like this book. It doesnt have a clear narrative.

[Anonymous No.10171955]

>>10169822
So what do you recommend?

[Anonymous No.10171964]

>>10171944
It makes the classic mistake of trying to show the grand scheme of things and the beauty of it all without accounting for the reader to lack insight about any of the possible examples or applications.

Take the Stokes theorem. It is introduced, along with differential forms, without talking about line or surface integrals at all. It is a generalisation but the reader can't and won't appreciate it.
Same thing with vector space - it is introduced as a module, but you have to have some experience with algebra before you get this 'a-ha!' moment when you realise that you can look at a familiar concept from a different angle. The reader is assumed to be unfamiliar with anything, though.
But surely the category theory is mentioned at every possible step.

[Anonymous No.10171967]

>Some weeb MIT Math PhD candidate
He's literally and undergrad. His PhD course started this autumn.

[Anonymous No.10172005]

>>10171785
I got the same feeling as well. He didn’t go into a lot of detail, and he’s basically just giving a very quick summary of some definitions, that will only be useful for people who already know what it is.

[Anonymous No.10172012]

>>10166663
dude this guy went to my high school

his name is evan chen (duh)
he was a math nerd

AMA

[Anonymous No.10172013]

>>10172012
why did you think that would be relevant

[Anonymous No.10172018]

>>10172013
cause its funny to see this mentioned on 4chan
i know this kid personally

[Anonymous No.10172019]

>>10172012
It’s obviously him who’s posting it here.

[Anonymous No.10172022]

>>10172012
How smart is he

[Anonymous No.10172024]

>>10172012
I went to highschool with the guy that said that he went to high school with evan chen (though I never met evan chen)..

[Anonymous No.10172029]

>>10172019
yea okay i guess probably, didn't expect him to be on 4chan. he was mostly quiet with sort of a hunch, wore hoodies all the time. awkward

>>10172022
certainly during senior year he was the best at math in our school, he was operating on different planes at times. good at math, did some math club stuff. he is a lot better at math than i am but i know a bunch of nerds at college, dont know how they compare now. he is better at math than i am at my major i would think, just looking at publications.

>>10172024
ay lmao. he went to irvington high school, fremont, ca

[Anonymous No.10172114]

I'm already lost

t. brainlet

[Anonymous No.10172148]

>>10172114
It is trivial for anyone with experience, but for a newcomer it's a very bad intro to groups. I mean, this topic was taught in high school (for mathematically inclined) in the Soviet Union, and the topic itself is beautiful as it shows how we can express symmetries. You kinda have to go out of your way to present it in such an obtuse manner, all it lacks is some categy theory on top and it would be the ultimate circlejerk explanation.

[Anonymous No.10172156]

I think I'm in love

[Anonymous No.10172164]

>>10166663
Thanks OP now ill have something to learn without feeling like learning.

[Anonymous No.10172267]

>>10172148
>It is trivial for anyone with experience
This is the problem with too many books on math. They make great sense to someone who already has knowledge on the subject, but for everyone else who read them hoping to learn something it's plain voodoo magic where you can't even look up through the unfamiliar terms in order because all of them are explained in the same mumbo jumbo.

[Anonymous No.10172341]

>>10172267
Thankfully, there are books that give some insight (I've mentioned a couple of authors above), and it has become even easier in the past decade due to forums (stackexchange, physicsforums, reddit, 4chan, what have you) and free lecture notes floating around.

[Anonymous No.10172892]

>>10172267
Anyone know a good book on groups for total beginners? (No knowledge above calculus)

[Anonymous No.10172904]

>>10172114
You have to keep reading. You're not supposed to understand the first example in each section until you've read the whole section.

Also to the people saying it's not rigorous enough or it's not good if you want to learn math, that's the first thing he's said. It's not for people who want to do math, it's for people (high schoolers mostly) who want to know what math is about. You're not going to be proving theorems about homology groups, but you will understand what they are and what's the big deal with them.

The closest thing I can think of to this napkin is Susskind's Theoretical Minimum of physics, or Feynman's QED. It's meant to educate people on very advanced branches of science that they would otherwise have no way to learn anything about. They aren't meant to get people into doing research.

[Anonymous No.10172909]

>>10167146
Ebin, he'd fit right in here

[Anonymous No.10173162]

>>10172892
Pinter's book of abstract algebra is baby tier. Maybe "a first course in abstract algebra" by Fraleigh.

[Anonymous No.10173237]

>>10167146
woah, really? What's his MAL account? or you can post an image where his MAL account is linking to 4chan.org/sci?

[Anonymous No.10173287]

>>10166663
>http://web.evanchen.cc/napkin.html
Thanks, love this kind of stuff

[Anonymous No.10173896]

>>10172904
>it's for people (high schoolers mostly) who want to know what math is about. You're not going to be proving theorems about homology groups, but you will understand what they are and what's the big deal with them.
The "book" fails to do that as elaborated by multiple anons above.
>The closest thing I can think of to this napkin is Susskind's Theoretical Minimum of physics
Except for Susskind providing the crucial missing piece between an undergrad course and a theorphys book, namely, intuition and motivation behind important principles and notions, while OP is a hosh-posh which aims to impress the reader with how cool the author is.

[Anonymous No.10173942]

holy shit this guy may be unironically autistic, I like him already

Book's a bit hard to follow, disorganized like >>10167171 says, but interesting nevertheless. Will read.

[Anonymous No.10173992]

>>10172019
>>10172029
op here

am not Evan Chen. he probably browses this board tho

[Anonymous No.10173996]

>>10172892
Dummit and Foote

[Anonymous No.10174043]

>>10167146
nice

[Anonymous No.10174051]

>>10166669 >>10167127 >>10167146
He played Doki Doki Literature Club

http://web.evanchen.cc/games.html

[Anonymous No.10174055]

>>10173942
>ive been using vim and latex since I was a teenager so im quite proficient at both
same but im quite shit at both