11–20 of 21 posts
Alright, back to studying.
Funny how utterly natural and subconsious this stuff becomes after a while. I almost felt like commenting something snyde about how superfluous it is to make it this explicit, but then I realized that it was only a few years ago that it made my consious brain totally overwhelmed.
Yeah at first I was thinking "is this not the only way of understanding written mathematics?!!" Then I realized that when I was a freshman undergrad, I understood much less than half of the terminology that is considered basic mathematics. The formalisms behind WOLOG and \forall \epsilon >0 \exists \delta > 0 s.t. yadda yadda were completely lost on me. A lot of mathematics is simply familiarity, and that's easy to f…
There's nothing special about mathematics in this regard.
Beyond notation and ordering, I have had the best results reading and comprehending complex concepts, including mathematics, by taking the following suggestion to the extreme: > Read with pencil and paper in hand, making up little examples for yourself as you go on. I like to find a difficult question that I can answer with an understanding of the material. This acts as a litmus test of my understanding and a forcing…
I do the exact opposite - I don't write anything down and try to visualize what I'm reading entirely. I don't start writing anything down when doing exercises until I have the entire solution in mind (unless it's something computational). It's hard to get used to doing at first, but, after a couple years, my abstract reasoning skills developed significantly past most or all of my peers.
Beyond notation and ordering, I have had the best results reading and comprehending complex concepts, including mathematics, by taking the following suggestion to the extreme: > Read with pencil and paper in hand, making up little examples for yourself as you go on. I like to find a difficult question that I can answer with an understanding of the material. This acts as a litmus test of my understanding and a forcing…
I do the exact opposite - I don't write anything down and try to visualize what I'm reading entirely. I don't start writing anything down when doing exercises until I have the entire solution in mind (unless it's something computational). It's hard to get used to doing at first, but, after a couple years, my abstract reasoning skills developed significantly past most or all of my peers.
Right now I'm studying for my math final for computer engineering. This really does speak to me as I often don't understand certain parts of the chapter and just skip ahead to the exercises and then I try to reflect back to the theory. Thank god that I don't have to learn a single proof though. Alright, back to studying.
From which book is this?
Looks to be a multivariate calculus text by the Hubbards: http://matrixeditions.com/5thUnifiedApproach.html
Right now I'm studying for my math final for computer engineering. This really does speak to me as I often don't understand certain parts of the chapter and just skip ahead to the exercises and then I try to reflect back to the theory. Thank god that I don't have to learn a single proof though. Alright, back to studying.
I'm studying computer science myself and very much enjoy writing proofs. Is there any particular reason that you don't?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looks to be a multivariate calculus text by the Hubbards: http://matrixeditions.com/5thUnifiedApproach.html
That's correct (a later edition than the pdf given the date). It is a beautiful book that blends the practical and abstract together to really give a solid foundation in both linear algebra and multivariable calculus topics. If someone asked me for exactly one book to read after learning single variable calculus, this is the book I would recommend. It is long, but extremely satisfying. It covers in detail many topics…
Right now I'm studying for my math final for computer engineering. This really does speak to me as I often don't understand certain parts of the chapter and just skip ahead to the exercises and then I try to reflect back to the theory. Thank god that I don't have to learn a single proof though. Alright, back to studying.