/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.6236126]

Need advice on math.
It's my first year and I suck at math.
I need to become better, but the system I am in indicates me to wait for the next fall to try again.
We did Analysis and I just couldn't wrap my head around it.
Should I retry Calculus then try again, or should I work on mathematical analysis?
Please, do respond.
pic related, just with biochemistry and genetic research.

[Anonymous No.6236830]

>>6236126
I'm sorry for being a pleb, but what exactly is Analysis? Do you mean stats or something more esoteric like number theory crap?
Again, sorry if I'm missing the point my req's only had me do calc3 and diffeq's.

[Anonymous No.6236865]

>>6236126
Get a beginner's book like Abbot's Understanding analysis
http://f3.tiera.ru/2/M_Mathematics/MC_Calculus/MCet_Elementary%20calculus%20textbooks/MCetp_Problems/Abbott%20S.%20Understanding%20analysis%20(with%20Instructor's%20Solutions%20Manual)%20(Springer,%202010)(ISBN%201441928669)(O)(429s)_MCetp_.pdf
It's good if you want a very gentle introduction.

>>6236830
>Do you mean stats or something more esoteric like number theory crap?
Number theory is the most applied area of mathematics, especially in computer science.
"Calculus" is just a collection of computational tricks, while analysis is the theoretical basis for them. To understand things like differential equations and geometry, one needs to really grasp what the foundations of differential and integral calculus are, and that is what a basic analysis course teaches you.

[Anonymous No.6236877]

>>6236865
Thank you kind anon. We chem people just hand it to the super computer and the CS people when shit gets too complicated, so they don't expect us to learn anything except the purely practical.
Still find the topics interesting even if I don't always understand what you guys are talking about.

[Anonymous No.6236893]

>>6236877
I mean, it's pretty useful if you ever cared about PChem and QM, so it's not just idle interest to a chemist
For example, the rigorous mathematical foundation of quantum mechanics uses the machinery of functional analysis, which is a combination of analysis techniques applied to very general vector spaces; you would study some of its aspects in Analysis 2 or 3.
I think these things are largely brushed over in chem classes, so it's pretty neat to learn about them.

[Anonymous No.6236903]

>>6236893
Yeah, I definitely got screwed as far as pchem went. Never took a QM class, then had to learn it all in the first two weeks of the semester. I have a firm enough grasp on the basics, but our professor basically told us that beyond that point (hydrogen system), our best bet would be to seek help elsewhere. It did make for some interesting independent thought problems though, like thinking about the size of quanta for a macroscopic object. Then I got to thinking about Schrodinger, and got lost in the idea that time may not be real as we see it. Like we are just a series of frames like a movie, but are so finely blurred that we cannot observe it.

I know that probably seems juvenile, but it was still fun to think about.