/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.10371137]

Why is linear algebra suffering? Why do the people that teach this course always make it so terrible? My prof just stands in front of the class reading definitions in a monotone voice off of a slideshow. No context. No applications. Just the definitions and then go do a bunch of questions with seemingly no motivation. Solve the system of linear equations. What system? Find the distance from the point to the plane. Sure... Is the matrix invertible? Who cares? A matrix is an array of numbers. That's cool I guess.

I bombed the first midterm too. We had 45 minutes to write it and the prof put too many questions so I couldn't even finish it. Why does this course have to be so hard? It is just fucking lines man.

[Anonymous No.10371142]

>>10371137
CS majors don't belong here.

[Anonymous No.10371146]

>>10371142
So judging from my description, you don't find anything wrong with the way my prof teaches the class? Just reading definitions?

[Anonymous No.10371155]

Gilbert Strang's lectures are god-tier. Watch those instead.

t. grad student in charge of linalg class tried teaching it as set theory

[Anonymous No.10371161]

>>10371137
>No context. No applications.
dude lines lmao
try computer graphics (or neural nets)

[Anonymous No.10371242]

>>10371137
You know the thing about college, is that it's just there to guide you.
You should study that stuff on your own, not wait from some professor to magically transmit his knowledge.
You are not in school anymore. Nobody is gonna force you to study or learn.
Nobody is gonna hold your hand. Nobody cares.
So you either grow up or waste away in mediocrity.

[Anonymous No.10371464]

>>10371137
Ye, the lectures are boring and hard to follow.
If you actually study it and do some exercises, it's the easiest shit.
And then the prof puts some extremely abstract questions in the exam where you need an entire hour to understand wtf he even wants, leading to a failing rate above 60%.

I think they just overcompensate, because in theory linear algebra is easy.

[Anonymous No.10371472]

lol in europe we have linear algebra in high school
dumb burgers

[Anonymous No.10371478]

>>10371242
and thats why """"profs"""" are fucking useless and shouldnt even have a job

they are less valuable than janitors

[Anonymous No.10371479]

>>10371472
What? I'm German and I didn't had that linear algebra that advanced.

[Anonymous No.10372137]

>>10371242
>You know the thing about college, is that it's just there to guide you.
Then why am I paying thousands of dollars to be there? And why is the prof there at all if his lectures are useless and it's not his job to teach?

[Anonymous No.10372172]

>>10371478
they're doing research
>>10372137
because you're a moron. the professor's job is to do research. anyone worth there shit gets it in seconds.
>>10371472
again, anyone worth their shit did linear algebra in high school.

[Anonymous No.10372179]

>>10371137
You must have a terrible prof. The best way is to think of matrices as coordinate transformations.
Solving a system of equations is equivalent to finding the length of the component vectors that make up the coordinate system.
Finding eigenvectors is essentially finding a set of basis vectors to describe the coordinate system.
Invertibility of a matrix is to check for mapping from higher dimensions to lower ones, since you can't meaningfully reverse those operations
Once you understand these concepts, linear algebra becomes braindead easy

[Anonymous No.10372194]

>>10372172
>because you're a moron. the professor's job is to do research. anyone worth there shit gets it in seconds.
Why are you being so hostile? The professor's job is to do research on the condition that he also teaches classes. He's not there in the classroom out of the goodness of his heart, it's part of his job also. People ITT are saying I'm not mature for expecting to get some value out of going to class, but what's really immature and idiotic is thinking the fact that the professor's primary goal is to do research gives him an excuse to do a shitty job teaching and make no effort to improve.

> anyone worth there shit gets it in seconds.
I'm betting you're one of those boy geniuses that constantly brags about his IQ on the internet. Well unfortunately, most people have average IQ and not everyone "gets it in seconds" which is precisely why people pay to go to school. Try again, faggot.

[Anonymous No.10372199]

>>10371137
It's probably your prof OP. For example we had a prof in my dept that made all math classes harder than they had to be. I mean, she used to teach at Princeton, so maybe she was trying to hold us to some "standard" but I just think it was unessecary. My friend took linear with her and he almost failed and then took it again with another prof and aced it. A lot of profs are just shitty, you got to find the good ones.

[Anonymous No.10372207]

>>10371478
This

If college had anything to actually do with education they wouldn't hire those who aced everything. Yeah research is important etc but some profs are just assholes and thing the world owes them because they have a Ph.D. not a popular opinion here but I believe it.

[Anonymous No.10372221]

>>10372179
>Finding eigenvectors is essentially finding a set of basis vectors to describe the coordinate system.
Wrong. Eigenvectors do determine a basis, but they are far more insightful than that. The eigenequation and its properties have profound connections to geometry, topology, the theory of polynomials, and observables in physics.

[Anonymous No.10372225]

>>10371146
It doesn't matter how he teaches the class. Anyone with an IQ above 70 could self-learn linear algebra, even if they're a pure math student. And that's not an exaggeration by any means.

[Anonymous No.10372298]

>>10372137
>why am I paying thousands of dollars to be there?
Because you're a burger.

[Anonymous No.10372300]

[Anonymous No.10373522]

OP are you a web developer by any chance, I'm studying it right now and fear JS will kill my last 5 braincells

[Anonymous No.10373575]

>>10371137
>solve the system of eq
10th grade math at latest
>distance from point to plane
generalization of distance from point to line
>matrix invertible
same problem as solving system of eq
It's really not that hard.

[Anonymous No.10373595]

>>10371137
>blames professor instead of taking a couple of hours to learn from infinite online resources

[Anonymous No.10373627]

Im doing intro to CS in a week, i was pretty shit at maths from ADHD in the final year of HS.
What should i bursh up on so i dont suck dick going into precalc ?
I feel so shit because a year later i 'graduated' i went back and looked over differentiation and pleffera or random yr12 maths topics and it was so fucking easy to understand and practice
TL:DR : what concepts should i have a solid understanding in to not bomb out of precalc ?

[Anonymous No.10373649]

>>10371137
>>10371146
You need to know the definitions in order to have any fucking idea of what you're doing, and in order to understand any of the proofs in the class.
And if you're struggling with the basics, you should be thankful that he isn't dumping applications sections on you too. But if you really want them, crack open your textbook and find the sections that talk about using systems of equations to balance chemical equations or to calculate loop currents using Kirchhoff's Laws. Every 1xxx/2xxx linear algebra textbook seems to have them.

[Anonymous No.10374045]

>>10372221
>You're wrong because you didn't explain a whole Field's worth of mathematics in a single 4chan post convincing some first year that linear algebra concepts have intuitive meanings
Absolutely pathetic. Is this all you math fags are good for?

[Anonymous No.10374102]

>>10372179
Eigenvectors alone don’t necessarily determine a basis for a vector space. That’s only if the linear operator of which they are eigenvectors is diagonalizable. Non-diagonalizable linear operators can have eigenvectors too.

[Anonymous No.10374106]

>>10371242
>lecturers shouldn't actually TEACH
what the hell do i pay you for?

[Anonymous No.10374375]

>>10371137
3blue1brown has an excelent series on linear algebra on youtube.

[Anonymous No.10374665]

>>10372179
>Linear algebra is just [math] \mathbb{R}^n[/math]

[Anonymous No.10374675]

>>10371137
Get Strang's Linear algebra and it's applications book and work through all the exercises and/or watch his lectures on MIT opencourseware.

3b1b if you get stuck to give you some intuition.
Khanacademy if you don't understand basic stuff.

[Anonymous No.10374685]

I hated that class because they couldn't assume any knowledge of abstract algebra

My TA was a based Italian. I wanted him to go off about group actions and affine transformations and the general linear group and fields and cayley-hamilton and shit so badly. He came dangerously close at times.

[Anonymous No.10374703]

>>10374106
> what the hell do i pay you for?
This is America's failing.
You turned education into a product, so now people have consumer mentality in regards to knowledge.
I'm sorry but this is just not how it works. Knowledge can not be bought or sold, because it has greater value than money.

But I will just replace pay with go.
So why do you go to college?
To meet inspiring people, and receive guidance and yes some people will actually be amazing at teaching too, but this doesn't mean everyone will be nor that they should be.
It is the price you pay to meet such people. When someone has sacrificed so much to reach the level of an academic professor, it means he has accumulated a great deal of knowledge and contributes to his science.
It does not necessarily mean he will be good at teaching.
To be honest it is kind of rare to find a person that combines both, and usually the more knowledge one has the more weird and autistic he becomes. Of course there are exceptions.
But anyway most professors are there to guide you and serve as an inspirational figure.

[Anonymous No.10374727]

>>10373627
Brush up on factoring (of ALL kinds)
Also the best prep for pre-calculus is to actually do pre-calculus and go back and work on what you're missing.

[Anonymous No.10374810]

>>10374685
The best part of linear algebra are the glimpses it gives in functional analysis and abstract algebra, the calculations are a nightmare thought, I'm sorry for those who think about only matrices and shit when talking about linear algebra.

[Anonymous No.10374813]

>>10374810
Sorry for my butchered English, I'm not a burger

[Anonymous No.10374846]

>>10374045
>I was wrong but I'll pretend otherwise
Sad!

[Anonymous No.10374850]

>>10372179
Unironically the worst post I have ever seen. Literally everything is wrong.

[Anonymous No.10375334]

>>10374810
This

[Anonymous No.10375403]

>>10374703
>So why do you go to college?
>To meet inspiring people, and receive guidance and yes some people will actually be amazing at teaching too, but this doesn't mean everyone will be nor that they should be.
I don't understand why academics look down upon people who go to university to be taught rather than having to learn on their own. What is wrong with that?

[Anonymous No.10375582]

Meanwhile im failing mathematical analysis which is fucking easy but i passed linear Algebra... Yeah it is vague and they dont give you much explanation but you can do it easily.

[Anonymous No.10375590]

>>10372179
bait of the highest level.

[Anonymous No.10375591]

>>10371464
Most accurate shit about linear algebra i have read.

[Anonymous No.10375602]

>>10375582
Just out of curiosity, where are you from?

[Anonymous No.10375665]

>>10375602
Portugal why?

[Anonymous No.10375667]

>>10375665
No ahahaha because a friend of mine at uni passed linear algebra and now is struggling with analysis

[Anonymous No.10375675]

>>10375667
It would be a bit crazy if you found your mate here on /sci/ ahah

[Anonymous No.10375709]

>>10372207
the issue is that someone worse in a topic is often better at teaching it since they can better relate to the difficulties you face at understanding a specific topic or problem

[Anonymous No.10375739]

>>10371137
lmao lin alg easy
just study

studying mech eng, linear algebra around every turn. if you think this bad just wait

[Anonymous No.10375759]

CSbro here. Never really cared or used linear algebra (or calculus really) until I took a course of deep learning this semester. Now I try to fit in vector operations wherever I can in my regular work to reduce branch predictions, pretty cool desu.

http://vmls-book.stanford.edu/

[Anonymous No.10375960]

You know, my linear algebra class was taught by a subhuman chink bugman, and he managed to talk about absolutely nothing for 1.5 hours. Of the 20 people enrolled in the class, only 3 including myself even bothered showing up to class. Here's what you do. You get a good student tutor for $10/hr, one session every week or so. Literally just have them teach you the material.

[Anonymous No.10375967]

>>10375739
You sound like a braindead monkey.
Fitting for an engineer, I guess

[Anonymous No.10376119]

>>10375960
>You get a good student tutor for $10/hr, one session every week or so. Literally just have them teach you the material.
I haven't seen a tutor for less than $20, the good ones are closer to $40

[Anonymous No.10376135]

>>10371137
Because they found out that's all they can do with their pure math degree

[Anonymous No.10376154]

I loved linear algebra when i took it, thought it was so much fun, but I got a lil bitterness towards it since my university had:

MTH203: Linear Algebra and Matrix Theory I
MTH204: Linear Algebra and Matrix Theory II
MTH213: Linear Algebra

My dumb ass thought it was 204 that was the Honors version, but it turned out 213 was. Which I guess makes sense, bigger number and all that, but in my defense, some engineering courses or life sciences calc were listed with higher numbers than their standard counterparts. Anyway fuck uni and fuck advisors

[Anonymous No.10377123]

>>10372179