Learning Math • Hacker News Board

Re: Learning Math

#71

Post by pixcavator » Tue, Feb 05, 2008, 4:45 PM UTC

projectileboy wrote: post #40

Funny you should ask... I took a lot of math classes all through college, but at every step I was reaching beyond my grasp, so I never had great understanding. And then after a few years, I forgot it all. So in my early thirties, I started over. Much more important than which text you use is your attitude, and a willingness to really walk through and understand the proof of a theorem, and a willingness to work throug…

Topology!

It is an almost totally overlooked area in any curriculum (math, CS, physics). And it is just as fundamental as algebra.

Algebraic topology isn't that incomprehensible as some think X the basic ideas are very simple and intuitive. Take a look at this short introduction http://www.inperc.com/wiki/index.php?title=Topological_Featu.... You need to know at least as much.

Re: Learning Math

#72

Post by curi » Tue, Feb 05, 2008, 6:23 PM UTC

rms wrote: post #68

falsestprophet wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learned your lesson?

What lesson?

I think he wants me to learn not to post things that will be downmodded. He probably thinks I didn't see it coming.

Re: Learning Math

#73

Post by iratsu » Wed, Feb 06, 2008, 6:09 AM UTC

One thing I would recommend looking at is Category theory. MarkCC has several blog posts about category theory at the Good Math Bad Math blog (http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/goodmath/category_theory/, in general i would also recommend looking at MarkCC's other blog posts as a source of math inspiration).

Wikipedia also has a nice article about category theory. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_theory), and I will also recommend 2 books on the subject:

First is, of course, Category Theory for the Working Mathematician by Saunders Maclane. It is an excellent book, but I must also warn that it is not an easy book and probably requires a fair bit on mathematical maturity.

Second is Basic Category Theory for Computer Scientists by Benjamin Pierce. It is much more of an introductory book and provides many examples in Computer Science which are useful to those doing theoretical CS.

Re: Learning Math

#74

Post by pfarrell » Thu, Feb 07, 2008, 5:21 AM UTC

projectileboy wrote: post #40

Funny you should ask... I took a lot of math classes all through college, but at every step I was reaching beyond my grasp, so I never had great understanding. And then after a few years, I forgot it all. So in my early thirties, I started over. Much more important than which text you use is your attitude, and a willingness to really walk through and understand the proof of a theorem, and a willingness to work throug…

Thanks for a great essay. I'm in exactly the position you describe at the beginning. I have a degree in Math, but always felt like what I was learning was just ahead of what I was understanding. I work in computers, so I get to use the reasoning skills I developed on a daily basis, but I have been wanting to start a rediscovery of Math. Thanks for the great pointers.

Re: Learning Math

#75

Post by Lobo » Sun, Nov 09, 2008, 8:37 PM UTC

projectileboy wrote: post #40

Funny you should ask... I took a lot of math classes all through college, but at every step I was reaching beyond my grasp, so I never had great understanding. And then after a few years, I forgot it all. So in my early thirties, I started over. Much more important than which text you use is your attitude, and a willingness to really walk through and understand the proof of a theorem, and a willingness to work throug…

What I am concerned about is the math I learned in high- school and college, is now after 19 years forgotten. I am sure many people are in the same spot, wanting to relearn it. Where are all the websites for this? This is the one I found, and not sure it is applicable? relearnmathatmiddleage.com