Mathematicians are chronically lost and confused (2014)
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Mathematicians are chronically lost and confused (2014)
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Re: Mathematicians are chronically lost and confused (2014)
#2Does anybody know a good guide on where to begin? Resources are not the issue here, but usually the overwhelming amount of information regarding all those topics and areas of mathematics. I was always very interested but got discouraged rather quickly, even after a semester at university. So far my favorite access to math was through philosophy.
Re: Mathematicians are chronically lost and confused (2014)
#3I feel the same way when solving tasks in my day job. The thing I tell to young people learning programming/tech that I hope they don't get frustrated easily, because they will spend every day of their life feeling rather stupid and confused, never knowing when will they discover a solution for a particular problem.
This is something that was a great source of stress early in my career.
Re: Mathematicians are chronically lost and confused (2014)
#4Does anybody know a good guide on where to begin? Resources are not the issue here, but usually the overwhelming amount of information regarding all those topics and areas of mathematics. I was always very interested but got discouraged rather quickly, even after a semester at university. So far my favorite access to math was through philosophy.
a) get started on something - if you can't decide, roll the dice and pick something at random
b) ignore everything else until you are done
c) repeat
Don't worry that at your pace it will take ages - very soon you will develop an idea how to rank what you should look at next. If you don't, go back to a).
Obviously it's useless to think about it too much when your knowledge about a subject consists mostly of holes and gaps, so first gather data (a).
I can't quite see how concrete your question is, but try Khan Academy. Follow the suggested order if you have no preferences.
Re: Mathematicians are chronically lost and confused (2014)
#5I feel the same way when solving tasks in my day job. The thing I tell to young people learning programming/tech that I hope they don't get frustrated easily, because they will spend every day of their life feeling rather stupid and confused, never knowing when will they discover a solution for a particular problem. This is something that was a great source of stress early in my career.
It's a game of educated guessing.
Experience helps.
Re: Mathematicians are chronically lost and confused (2014)
#6Does anybody know a good guide on where to begin? Resources are not the issue here, but usually the overwhelming amount of information regarding all those topics and areas of mathematics. I was always very interested but got discouraged rather quickly, even after a semester at university. So far my favorite access to math was through philosophy.
I read a lot of math in ML papers, but I don't do any exercises, and maybe that's why I am not sure of myself. A very gradual collection of problems pertaining to linear algebra, calculus and statistics would be great. Something like Khan Academy, but the key point is to be gradual, so as not to terrify me before I get through it. Ideally such a training ground could guide students through problems based on exercise logs collected from other students, by creating an optimized curriculum. Anyone knows where to look?
Re: Mathematicians are chronically lost and confused (2014)
#7I feel the same way when solving tasks in my day job. The thing I tell to young people learning programming/tech that I hope they don't get frustrated easily, because they will spend every day of their life feeling rather stupid and confused, never knowing when will they discover a solution for a particular problem. This is something that was a great source of stress early in my career.
It's a game of educated guessing. Experience helps.
Indeed, but the more experienced I get the harder/bigger problems I work on, so that balances it out. I still feel rather stuck on a daily basis, but I accept the situation and try to deal with it with a calm focus.
Re: Mathematicians are chronically lost and confused (2014)
#8Does anybody know a good guide on where to begin? Resources are not the issue here, but usually the overwhelming amount of information regarding all those topics and areas of mathematics. I was always very interested but got discouraged rather quickly, even after a semester at university. So far my favorite access to math was through philosophy.
a) get started on something - if you can't decide, roll the dice and pick something at random b) ignore everything else until you are done c) repeat Don't worry that at your pace it will take ages - very soon you will develop an idea how to rank what you should look at next. If you don't, go back to a). Obviously it's useless to think about it too much when your knowledge about a subject consists mostly of holes and…
pretty much this.
The last math class I took was in high school and I dropped out of college because my CS degree required me to do a metric fuckton of math, which I hated at the time.
A few years ago I got interested and started working on Integer Factorization. It is not that likely that I will solve that problem but in the past few years I have learned a lot more math by attempting to solve that problem that I learned in college!
Moral of the story: Just have fun and try to solve some problem(s).
Re: Mathematicians are chronically lost and confused (2014)
#9Does anybody know a good guide on where to begin? Resources are not the issue here, but usually the overwhelming amount of information regarding all those topics and areas of mathematics. I was always very interested but got discouraged rather quickly, even after a semester at university. So far my favorite access to math was through philosophy.
a) get started on something - if you can't decide, roll the dice and pick something at random b) ignore everything else until you are done c) repeat Don't worry that at your pace it will take ages - very soon you will develop an idea how to rank what you should look at next. If you don't, go back to a). Obviously it's useless to think about it too much when your knowledge about a subject consists mostly of holes and…
But some areas require knowledge base of others
Re: Mathematicians are chronically lost and confused (2014)
#10Does anybody know a good guide on where to begin? Resources are not the issue here, but usually the overwhelming amount of information regarding all those topics and areas of mathematics. I was always very interested but got discouraged rather quickly, even after a semester at university. So far my favorite access to math was through philosophy.