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Ask HN: Is there a website specialized in mathematics courses?

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Re: Ask HN: Is there a website specialized in mathematics courses?

#41

Post by Jimpulse »

sabas123 wrote: post #15

I would advice against resources like KA and 3B1brown. I'm a firm believer that you don't truly understand material unless you also understand a proof for it. Ane while those resources are AMAZING for simple intuition building, they aren't sufficient. Go pick up a book about proofs to develop mathematical maturity and then delve into some undergrad books for analysis (Abbott) or linear algera (Axler)

Do you have any recommendation on a book about proofs? Every time I delve into algorithms most CS books seem to make large jumps in logic when demonstrating proofs.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a website specialized in mathematics courses?

#42

Post by rramadass »

I suggest spending less time with online lectures/videos etc. and more time with actual Books. The online stuff should be an adjunct to your study of books. Also it is best if you look at books dealing with a survey of all the relevant topics required for Science/Engineering before delving into specialized ones. To that end, i can recommend the following;

Mathematical Techniques: An Introduction for the Engineering, Physical, and Mathematical Sciences by Jordan and Smith - This book is really accessible.

Mathematical Methods for Physics and Engineering: A Comprehensive Guide by Riley, Hobson, Bence - A more advanced coverage of topics than the one above.

Mathematics for Physicists: Introductory Concepts and Methods by Altland and Delft - The coverage is excellent but somewhat challenging to read.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a website specialized in mathematics courses?

#43

Post by swiley »

As much as I really hate to say it, youtube seems to have the best collection of recorded math lectures I can find anywhere. OCW has quite a few but only the ones from MIT. One of my professors only uploaded to youtube (and I think he was doing this without the administration knowing, they were generally hostile to recorded lectures and the official policy was that recordings of lectures should never be shared to non students for some reason.)

Besides that good math books are usually very cheap. I would highly recommend those over a website.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a website specialized in mathematics courses?

#44

Post by y7 »

tuxxy wrote: post #25
saivan wrote: post #21

I'm making youtube videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCafIamqsRUHoRT4496jgvMQ And I'm also working on a website that has a fair bit of the foundations: https://treena.org/ Admittedly, we don't have a huge amount of the higher stuff yet. But we are making our way through steadily :) Hopefully it's of some help to you

This looks really neat. I noticed a typo on https://tuition.treena.org/ "Enrol Now" should be "Enroll Now" :)

Enrol is the preferred spelling outside North America.

https://grammarist.com/spelling/enrol-enroll/

Re: Ask HN: Is there a website specialized in mathematics courses?

#45

Post by pthreads »

Alexss wrote: post #7

https://realnotcomplex.com/ has a wide range of free textbooks and video courses collected

Just found at least two books on topics of my interest and there are several more that I think I will read in the future. This is a good resource. Thank you!

Re: Ask HN: Is there a website specialized in mathematics courses?

#46

Post by buixuanquy »

Jimpulse wrote: post #41
sabas123 wrote: post #15

I would advice against resources like KA and 3B1brown. I'm a firm believer that you don't truly understand material unless you also understand a proof for it. Ane while those resources are AMAZING for simple intuition building, they aren't sufficient. Go pick up a book about proofs to develop mathematical maturity and then delve into some undergrad books for analysis (Abbott) or linear algera (Axler)

Do you have any recommendation on a book about proofs? Every time I delve into algorithms most CS books seem to make large jumps in logic when demonstrating proofs.

The best book about proof I've read is "How to prove it" by Daniel J. Velleman. A lot of set theory. But to understand it, you must do the exercises in the book. And for the solution, checkout this blog: https://www.inchmeal.io/htpi/index.html

Re: Ask HN: Is there a website specialized in mathematics courses?

#47

Post by hastingo »

bvm wrote: post #26
ben_w wrote: post #16

I’m working through the entirety of brilliant.org right now; some of its courses are specifically maths, and the skill level goes from introductory courses all the way up to maths-degree level topics.

How is it? I've seen it peddled by a lot of youtubers that I like.

My take: it's good but has some drawbacks. The biggest one for me is that the questions are mostly multiple choice. You don't have to show your work or reason through the problem, so it's easy to mentally cheat and say "eh I think it's this one." This isn't so much a fault of Brilliant as a limitation of the smartphone/web technologies vs. pen and paper. I've been having some success with a blend of Brilliant, books, and application (using what I learn to read some physics). I don't think using it on its own will probably be enough though if you want to be able to apply or know the topics deeply.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a website specialized in mathematics courses?

#48

Post by jeffreyrogers »

sabas123 wrote: post #15

I would advice against resources like KA and 3B1brown. I'm a firm believer that you don't truly understand material unless you also understand a proof for it. Ane while those resources are AMAZING for simple intuition building, they aren't sufficient. Go pick up a book about proofs to develop mathematical maturity and then delve into some undergrad books for analysis (Abbott) or linear algera (Axler)

Axler is too abstract for most people who want applications (I have worked through it). Unfortunately, I don't know of a good linear algebra text that is focused on actual calculations and isn't boring. Linear algebra has so many interesting applications, but I found learning it tedious.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a website specialized in mathematics courses?

#50

Post by wcarss »

impendia wrote: post #38

I am a math professor. In my observation, there is a huge amount of material available on the web, but it isn't very centralized -- especially at the upper levels. My advice would be to get a book on any topic which interests you, read through it, and do a significant number of the exercises . You might try Epp's Discrete Mathematics , Hefferon's Linear Algebra , Colley's Vector Calculus , Dudley's Elementary Number…

With many books, I'm not sure how to verify that I'm actually doing the exercises properly.

In the (simple!) maths I took, my misunderstandings often led me to do exercises incorrectly, but to think I'd done them right, or to have half a proof and no idea what insight I was missing. Even when solutions were provided (which was rare!), the path connecting the dots could be foggy. "What made them think to introduce this lemma?" kind of questions.

I often needed discussion with others to help figure out my misconceptions and correct them -- so... big ask, but do you have any further suggestions on how to replace talking with a TA, or with a smart group of upper-year friends?

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