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/sci/ - Science & Math

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7546541 No.7546541 [Reply] [Original]

University just started on monday.
And I feel like the dumbest piece of shit.
I have very hard problems on understanding what the prof is lecturing about. I mean very hard. I can't even get about 10% of what actually is going on.
That so many is taught is such short time doesn't help me either. It's been 3 days now and everyday something else is going on when I didn't even get the subject of the day before.
Trying to understand all of this alone at home doesn't bring me any further.

And it's just some preperation courses in math for my physics study that officially start in october.
Am I just dumb and not able to do this 'higher' math? School math was nothing for me.
Is there a way of improving and getting better?
Because I can't seem to see any.

>> No.7546551

Paul's online math notes?
Patrick JMT?
Opencourseware?

>> No.7546553

wtf? give examples of what you understand.

>> No.7546569

>>7546553
That's my problem. I understand nearly nothing.
For example today, the prof started with complex numbers. I just couldn't get to understand any of what he was lecturing about them.
Have problems just from the beginning. He says there are complex numbers and goes on of defining everything about them and whatnot. And I don't get any of this when I can't even get the first thing. Then the blackboard is written with all of this and I just copy it without any understanding.
Maybe it's just because it's not like school and the shit is just told to you in a quick way?

>> No.7546570

what courses are you taking and why are you taking them?

>> No.7546571

I hace no big problems but I will stay here and listen in avid interest.

>> No.7546576

And I also feel like I am lacking a fucking of lot the basics. In school they just taught how to calculate over and over.

>> No.7546584

>>7546570
Like I said I will be taking courses for my physics study. The first 3 semesters will mostly be math. More than the half of it all. Now I am going to some preperations courses.
I'll go study physics because I want to know more about it and am generally much interested in it. But the 'higher' seems to be a big problem for me.

>> No.7546585

>>7546541
If this is your first year that you got into one of those unis that think you had the preparation for this shit in highschool and are ready to jumpstart with work from there.
Anyway there is long way road ahead of you.Good luck of and dont get scared i been through it.
Remember to stop and the end of the second year and slow down a little bit and get gf and friends.
I made the mistake of doing the opposite and now am 24yo virgin with social anxiety and not being able to speak with anyone because i spent so much time in isolation.

>> No.7546588

>>7546569
You're only just learning about complex numbers?

Underage or what lmao

>> No.7546590

>>7546588
Actually no. I'm 20.

>> No.7546596

>>7546584
>the 'higher' seems to be a big problem for me
there is a learning curve. to be comfortable with physics you have to master the stuff you're learning now. how did i do it? i spent all day thinking about the math until it became more second nature than english to me. study a lot, study with the goal of understanding.

>> No.7546598

>>7546541
>I can't even get about 10%
youtube
just watch someone make it simple for 20 minutes

it's like an idiots guide, but you'll learn more than you do in lectures

>> No.7546599

>>7546541
Don't give up man. It always looks like mistical mumbo jumbo at first glance and year (physics graduate here)
Maybe you got a weird teacher, maybe you're going through periodic brain freeze.
Find another course, if you can, or try different approach. Get a book on topic, find some YouTube tutorials.

And trust me, calculus is actual fun. After first two years, when is pain in the butt

>> No.7546606

>>7546541

complex numbers are easy
i=square root of -1
2i= two times the square root of -1
square root of 4 is 2
square root of -4 is 2i
because you separate the -1 that 4 is being multiplied by into square root of 4 * square root of -1

>> No.7546608 [DELETED] 

>>7546599

i'm not OP but
I'm a high school senior applying for a life science major at my uni
thing is, I have to take calculus 1 and 2 for my major
I have no calc experience and will not have the chance to get any in school until I go to college

I usually averaged B's in my high school math classes (algebra 1, geometry, algebra 2) and got a 630 on SAT M
Do I have any chance? Everyone I know who's taken it says calc is impossible

>> No.7546609

>>7546608
Calc really isn't hard. I don't understand how it got this reputation; it's on the same level as the rest of high school math.

>> No.7546614

>>7546609
I don't know, I have friends who got way better SAT M scores and highschool math grades who are saying calc is impossible
granted they took the SAT 4+ times and I did it twice but still

>> No.7546622

>>7546609
Probably because you have to think more. Most people seem to hate anything that involves thinking

>> No.7546682

>>7546541
HAHAHAHAHAHA

>> No.7546691

>>7546541
What level math are you in?

>> No.7546702

>>7546608
I've seen people learning calculus overnight and passing. Multiple choice tests do this thing.

Trouble is, up to high school math is standarized up to boring levels, as in 'crunching numbers is not thinking '

Calculus is for most people the first encounter with 'real ' mathematics - mathematical abstract thinking. Thus, brain freeze. Because it's not what you did in maths classes your whole school life.

So ,if you gonna get a test with fixed questions known beforehand, you can pass it like in high school
But if you get a hardass of a teacher... Better prepare yourself to open to world of pain. And miracles.

And rememeber - there 's little better brain exercise than advanced math. Just as previous post mentioned, get a girlfriend and life along the way.

'cause you're propably not the next Tesla or Dirac

>> No.7546719

>>7546541
I think you are like me, naturally understand math, but there is only so much you can just KNOW. I mean, unless you are a super autist, work ethic is going to be important at some point, which is my main flaw.

>> No.7546765

>>7546606
Is this bait ? You know there's actually a lot more than this right ?

>> No.7546770

>>7546765
nope.
It's all OP needs to know tbh

>> No.7546809

>>7546770
Well it depends on the courses he's taking but I'm almost sure he'll need to understand the exponential and trigonometric form of the complex numbers.

>> No.7546815

>>7546809
exponential isn't that hard once you just get the basic logic down of what I explained
and I doubt OP is in trig, sounds like he's just getting introduced to complex

>> No.7546849

>>7546815
By trig I meant the "trig way" to represent complex numbers

>> No.7546860

you have to understand the fundamentals before moving on. That's how you study maths otherwise you will never learn. Go back to the basics and get a conceptual understanding of how complex numbers work. If you don't you will fail. Maths is all about conceptual understanding

>> No.7546878

>>7546541
KhanAcademy.

Seriously. This will help you out a lot in understanding things at your own pace.

Just actually put the time in on KhanAcademy, and you will be fine.

Also, what you are doing doesn't sound like "higher math."

Are you doing proofs? Set theory? If not, KhanAcademy will be fine for you.

>> No.7546885

>>7546541
Do you read the chapter beforehand?

Do you take notes on important concepts before you attend the lecture?

>> No.7546887

>>7546878
And to add to this, if you do get into 'higher mathematics' in the course of the semester, there are some great video lectures on YouTube from some guy called Bill Shillito (if I remember correctly) that are about transitioning to higher mathematics.

>> No.7546922

As someone who sometimes has trouble with math, what helps me is viewing math as a series of equivalences that simply an equation down to a form where it is easily solvable. The equivalences can be in multiple dimensions, or be visual, or be completely abstract in some way.

You remember all the equivalences (theorems, other equations etc.) to start, and then you practice problems until you know when and how to use them. Its important to know the nuances of the equivalences, but don't get too worked up about knowing how to derive them.

Also, it takes a bit of work to get more abstract concepts. Sometimes, if you really don't get it, just remember the equivalences and you'll still be good. I highly doubt any of my class understood complex numbers when it was first introduced, but it didn't matter because what you really need to know is how to apply equivalences to them (i.e. how to multiply, divide, subtract, add, the angle, converting using Eulers, magnitude, etc). When you have a better understanding of how to manipulate the concepts/use the equivalences, then you can start applying them to real life situations.

I'm a junior in dubble e and I find that the way professors usually teach is opposite the way I learn. They first introduce why we need the concepts, then they use some relatively complicated equations to derive the formulas/theorems we would actually use, but by that time my brain is timed out and I'm playing Puzzle and Dragons on my phone. How I usually learn best is to start with a problem and find out what formulas I need to solve the problem, learn the equations that way, and then when I have a good grasp of how the solutions work go back and learn how the equations are derived. The other way is simply too boring for me. YMMV. Of course, this is typically "backwards," but if it works it works.

>> No.7546925

I think much of your problem is more with didactics than with the actual math.

I'm not good at giving advice in this direction, because learning is a very individual thing. I for one will try to first understand the big picture and then work out the details later. When the professor states a new theorem I first try to understand what the theorem states in the context of this course and why we would want such a theorem. Only after that will I try to work through the proof. And even there I don't work on all details, just the important bits.

tl;dr: It's virtually impossible to understand everything in real time, prioritise the bigger picture and work out the rest at home.

>> No.7546938

>>7546885
This. You don't go to a math lecture expecting to be taught material. They just show most common applications

>> No.7546960

>>7546541
I was terrible at math and jumped right into university studying chemistry and physics among over subjects.
It was a steep learning curve but I quickly caught on.
While my math skills would still be laughable to some, in just three semesters they are 10000x better then when I started.

>> No.7546965

>starts in October
Are you from Germany? Don't worry about the math precourse, it's made to demotivate you. Don't give up, the semester will be over so fast and you'll be really glad you didn't. Once you're into the cycle of lectures, tutorials and studying sessions with your colleagues/alone everything will sort out itself. You'll learn more in 1 lecture than in 1 week of the prerecs course. Every start is hard. Give it 4 weeks, look how university is for you, then if it's still the same, you should really change the major or if it's really bad stop studying altogether and learn a trade.

>> No.7547358

>>7546965
Atasa

>> No.7547367

>>7546541
Your prof must have office hours, right? Go in and explain your issues to him, have him explain it to you one on one. Don't worry about seeming dumb, the entire reason office hours exist is for issues like yours. Don't assume you're incapable of math just because you've had a rough first 3 days.

>> No.7547430

>>7546588
Yeah I mean "hurr duur i is a number" can be taught to any high school student but learning euler's, demoivres etc in any meaningful way and doing calculus with them is definitely university level

>> No.7547432

>>7546849
>>7546815
>>7546809
He's probably in diff eq or some engineering math class, and most definitely is only learning about them so that he can use the trig expressions to cool stuff

>> No.7547434

>>7546960
This is really the key imo. People struggle for a semester and feel worthless the whole time but they don't realize that at the end of the semester the level that they are at compared to where they started is the same difference as the "geniuses" in their class they were comparing themselves to at the beginning. You can get alot of mathematical proficiency just by being around it and constantly working stuff out

>> No.7547505

Study groups is the best fucking thing ever. Created a Facebook group for people studying the math course I'm taking and now I've got daily study groups I can join. It's really helpful when you have no idea what's going on and can get it explained to you from 5 different people.

>> No.7547508

>>7546551
Patrick JMT is literally the reason I got through Calculus. The funny thing was that I hated math until I got to calculus.

>> No.7547510

Honestly it always took me a few weeks to get back into things. Summer break would literally make me dumber but after some time studying again it came back to me. Hang in there OP

>> No.7547515

>>7546960
Not OP, but this post is a beacon of hope for me.

>> No.7547810

>>7546815
OP here. Actually yes, we are introduced into exponential and trigonometric complex numbers. That's exactly what I don't get. Even the basics like one anon said gave me problems and shortly after this we are introduced to these stuff.

>> No.7548546

>>7547810
Are you familiar with trigometric functions (and by any chances, to series?)
If you think you don't understand why the statements are true, look up their proof.

>> No.7549578

>>7546569
How hard is it to understand complex numbers? If you square them, they become negative, end of story.

>> No.7549584

>>7546606
> i = square root of -1
Okay, then 1 = -1.
> root (-1)*root (-1) = root(1)
> but i*i=-1?!

>> No.7549689

>>7549584
>root (-1)*root (-1) = root(1)
Kek, that rule applies only to reals.

>> No.7549837

>>7546541
OP it seems to me you are in the wrong math class. Did you not take a math placement exam or something like that? I would talk to your advisor because it seems to me like you are in a math class that you are not ready for.

>> No.7549840

>>7549584
>Okay, then 1 = -1.
Please stop.

>> No.7549943
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7549943

>> No.7550152

>>7546609
Depends on the calculus course you are in. Science majors (except physics depending on the university) all take a calculus course that has no theory, that is you can just pass by memorising, practicing mindlessly, and knowing certain tricks for algebraic manipulating. However, there is a certain type of calculus (aka real analysis) that has theory included and trust me you can't bs your way out of that course and is hard if you have no experience with writing proofs or think that you can just solve calculation problems and get a good mark.

>> No.7551062
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7551062

>>7549689
>>7549840
> mfw people here think that square roots exist for complex numbers
sigh /sci/..

>> No.7551063

i have like the opposite problem of you anon

>> No.7551065

>>7551062
They do exist...

sqrt(i) = 1/sqrt(2) + i/sqrt(2)

>> No.7551257

>>7551062
exponentiation for complex powers work fine bro

>> No.7551273
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7551273

>>7549578
I took the bait.

>> No.7553236

>>7546541
Don't be afraid to go back to the beginning of the book or to per-requisite materials. Nobody is going to judge you if you're trying your best to learn. Feynman always said that the best way to read a textbook is to re-read it from the start if you get stuck.

If you take a look at the reason why people do poorly in calculus it's because they have weak algebra/pre-calc. skills. It's import to hone those skills before you move on.

>> No.7553462

My university uses the dreaded fucking shitty Stewart as a calculus textbook. How the heck did this book even get to the seventh edition? Why is it so widely used? What the actual fuck is going on with higher ed? Why the fuck isn't proof based calculus mandatory everywhere?

How do I fix this? I was thinking Apostol. It's used at Caltech, so it must be pretty solid. I've glossed over the contents for volumes 1 and 2 and seems like it's got even more stuff in it than Stewart, so I won't miss anything. I was thinking of Spivak but it doesn't cover as broadly as Apostol so thats out of the question.

Is there any reason why this might be a horrible idea? I'm already fairly proficient in calculus and want to go deeper, so the only way for me to keep my interest and attention would be to use a text other than Stewart.

I'm also looking at the free series by Marsden and Weinstein available at the Caltech online library.

>> No.7553473

>>7553462
Stop listening to /sci/ you idiot, Stewart is just as proof based as any of the texts you mentioned except for the one that's actually analysis. Stewart is one of the few intro calc texts that actually introduces epsilon-delta proof.

> I'm already fairly proficient in calculus and want to go deeper,
No you're not, I'm pretty sure you don't know jack shit about calculus or you would've made more intelligent critiques of Stewart, of which there are many legitimate critiques.

>> No.7553616

>>7553473
Really? Have you even read Spivak or Apostol? Stewart's use of proofs come in as afterthoughts disjointed from the main exposition. Especially in his "Early Transcendentals," exp, log, sin and cos are on unusually shaky ground for any respectable "proof-based calculus" course. The introductory chapter on limits is god-awful and appeals to intuition far too much without building to a decent foundation.

>>7553462
My advice to you is to use Spivak. It's a far more unified, coherent work that is quite complete despite its misleadingly sparse table of contents. Apostol is unpleasantly dry and reads like an analysis text without the accompanying rigor, insight or engendered mathematical maturity. It's a great way to turn you off from further math study. Yes, it has more shit. But there are far better treatments of linear algebra and multivariate analysis out there.

>> No.7553646

>>7546569
Best way to learn shit for me is to do look at and try and solve examples of questions involving complex numbers rather than reading notes.

>> No.7553649

To be honest, lectures are useless a lot of the time. 100% if the lecturer has the personality of a fish. I pretty much just go to them for the routine as well as to creep on the babes.

However, lectures can be useful if you are proactive. If you go through lecture material before the lecture, they will be far more effective because whilst going through the content you'll spot things that make no sense whatsoever so you'll be more likely to pay attention to those sections and get more out of it. Otherwise, you'll zone out pretty quickly and miss those things forcing you to either watch the lecture again or spend considerable time struggling to understand the stuff.

But as others have said, YouTube is your friend. Places like Khan Academy are great for lots of first and second year science subjects.

I think the hardest thing to get used to at Uni is the pace. You have like 12 weeks to learn what took a year or more in high school, and if it's STEM, that shit is not easy. Especially if most of it is new. First Year Chem was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life academically, but boy oh boy did I get a lot out of it by being proactive and doing lots of reinforcement of content.

I'm pretty shit at math and do barely any of it at Uni as I am in Biochem, but the only real way I found of getting good at it was simply through practising it regularly. If you apply the shit you're learning, it becomes much easier to understand and recall later on.

>> No.7553653

>>7546541
I learned logic through programming.
This has helped me big time.

>> No.7553657

>>7549584
i isn't 1 m8

>> No.7553680

>>7553653
idiot

>> No.7554084

>>7553473
Yes, I'm pretty sure there are tons of pure mathematicians out there that have extremely great, intelligent and high views of Stewart's book in light of the fact that books such as Apostol and Spivak exist.

What sort of intelligent mathematician wouldn't support an overpriced, shitty 1100 page, colored as if it were just to keep a 5 year old's attention span in the same manner as a children's storybook, rambling incoherent text much longer than it needs to be for the paltry amount of content it contains? Lets also not forget that it's made compulsory for almost every calculus course out there and comes with bullshit like access codes and webassign and publisher DRM for its ebook edition.

Heck, It doesn't take a person any knowledge of calculus to realize he doesn't like to get fucked in the ass by this shitty system. So far, almost everyone in support of Stewart's book simply has a publishing agreement or partnership with cengage. I know my university certainly does. The rest are those who are thankful enough that Stewart is dumb and plain enough to let them pass their course.

8 fucking editions of garbage, one almost no different from the last, all just to make money. It's the Call of Duty of fucking mathematics. I bet SAS and Navy Seals view that simulation highly - if you disagree you know jack shit about warfare otherwise you would have made more intelligent critiques of Black Ops 15 and its 4 DLCs. Says the 10 year old kid next door, of course.

>> No.7554377

>>7553473
No it's not.
>>7553462
It's mostly a matter of choice. I own both Spivak and Courant (an other highly-regarded calc textbook) and I've read a bit of Apostol.
Spivak is more an introduction to real analysis as it will really start from scratch. You'll be introduced to the properties of number and build on that. It's like reviewing all you've seen so far, but with axioms and proofs. This book is written in a way that doesn't assume any previous knowledge in mathematics at all. You just start out with axioms which are given, and deduce properties. There are also great appendixes and it's overall pretty solid with some of the hardest exercices I've seen so far.
Courant is definitely one of my favourite textbook. It's well written but requires, as with Spivak/Apostol some mathematical maturity, especially when it comes to proofs. The book is a great source of information as it covers a lot. It even has a section on basic ODE if I recall correctly. The book's philosophy is to teach both integral and differential calculus at the same time (which I personally find great).
Last but not least, Apostol is a really interesting book as it goes over integral calculus before going into differential calculus, which, historically speaking is more accurate. It's also one of the best and most challenging book out there for Calculus.
But be aware that these books are all difficult, especially if it's your first encounter with calculus. And even if you have already done some calculus before, you'll quickly understand that a deep understanding of the theorems will be needed in order to really benefit from those books (especially in the exercices).
Hope it helps.

>> No.7554382

>>7546541
You're human. Not a Robot.
No one is perfect. Everyone make errors.

>> No.7556516

>>7554377
Yes it is.
>It's mostly a matter of choice. I own both Spivak and Courant (an other highly-regarded calc textbook) and I've read a bit of Apostol.
Right, so you've never even read it. Typical contrarian faggot, you only dismiss it because it's popular and has nice looking figures even though it's still more rigorous than most intro texts. It covers ODEs too btw, considering you somehow think that's "is a great source of information as it covers a lot" fir an intro calc text.

>> No.7557606

>>7556516
>Typical contrarian faggot, you only dismiss it because it's popular

He's not dismissing it because its popular. He's dismissing it because its garbage, which coincidentally just happens to be the same reason why its popular. Apparently popularity is correlated with declining quality in many cases. Just look at pop music.

>Typical contrarian faggot, you only dismiss Justin Bieber because he's popular! waaah

"Widely used calculus books must be mediocre" - W. Rudin

>> No.7557619

>>7554377
What are typically considered to be good differential equations books?

>> No.7557657

I feel you OP. Last month I started a double major mathematics and physics, but mathematics just went so fast, I couldn't keep up with it, and as such I decided to drop it. Even though I was great at mathematics in college. I just could hardly keep up with analysis, and having those proofs as exercises was too difficult for me. I just can't see how people can treat some proofs as stuff they'll have done in a given amount of time.

>> No.7557780

>>7547430
Not really, no. HS seniors and even juniors can into them pretty easily.

>> No.7557791

>>7546878
Please no.
Khan academy is awful for anything beyond fractions

>> No.7557854

>>7546569
Physics level math is all about doing the exercises over and over again until it just comes naturally to you. No understanding required (though very useful later), just know what to do and when (see how the prof solves a particular problem, now take the problem and try to solve it yourself, and then try taking the same steps as the prof did).

I think there's even a word for this type of calculation, where you just develop the skill by routinely doing the same calculations over and over again until you know what to do.

>> No.7557889

I didn't learn anything in school in computer science because I need concrete applications for it to stick. After school when I got a job it was like one big celine dion climax as "it's all coming back to me know!"

>> No.7557930

>>7557780
Calculus with them in HS is pretty unreasonable since less than half of public US HS even have the option of taking Calculus AB, let alone BC, so...

>> No.7557964

>>7556516
Did you even read my post ? I'm not even talking about Stewart and I said that all three of the books I talked about are great, just different. The guy asked for a great textbook for calculus oriented towards proof, which by the way, isn't the case of Stewart and I just gave him suggestions. I didn't even compare them to Stewart.
>>7557619
It mostly depends on your actual level and what you're looking for (more practical use or more theory oriented). I really like 'Ordinary Differential Equations' from Tanenbaum.