This is a bit of an evergreen so just searching HN will net you piles of threads with lots of advice and references to resources.
Ask HN: How do I learn math/physics in my thirties?
51–60 of 160 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do I learn math/physics in my thirties?
#52There is one sure way, and it’s a test of your fortitude. You find a a college textbook with the answers to the even-numbered problems in the back. You sit down in a warm or hot room, and solve them. If the textbook is in its 4th printing or so, the answers are correct. On a few, you’ll have to work for hours. Now here is a very, very, important point. All the learning occurs on the problems you struggle with. In the…
> You sit down in a warm or hot room
What is wrong with airconditioning?
Re: Ask HN: How do I learn math/physics in my thirties?
#53Watch the 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw These videos are frankly better explanation of college-level math concepts than most college classes. Also, now you probably care much more about the intuitions of mathematics over the raw mechanics of it. Once again, this channel perfectly exemplifies this concept.
These videos are posted any time linear algebra is mentioned. I find it almost comical at this point. What good is this intuition? I struggle to understand the value that these videos bring, but I'm not saying there is no value. I'm just lost, and kind of jealous because I need a deep understanding of linear algebra for work.
For me personally, understanding why it is done on a deeper level than is commonly taught helps me consolidate the concept more comprehensively and permanently.
Re: Ask HN: How do I learn math/physics in my thirties?
#54People say you have to "do" math to learn it. Usually they make it sound like you need to do the exercises in the books. I think that doing just that can be boring and demotivating.
I would suggest finding projects that can motivate you and help you exercise your math. Some suggestions of mathy things I regularly work on for fun:
1. Make a video game. If it's a 3d game, you'll have to do your matrices, dot products, trigonometry, etc.
2. shadertoy.com - This is a community site where people just program cool looking graphics for fun. All the code is open, so you can learn from it. Similar to game programming but without the mathless overhead. :)
3. Machine learning projects - I love writing various machine learning things, but the project that has been a great ML playground has been my self driving toy car. It gives me plenty of opportunities to explore many aspects of machine learning and that helps drive my math knowledge. My car repo is here: https://github.com/otaviogood/carputer but a much easier project is donkeycar.com. ML will touch on linear algebra, calculus, probabilities/statistics, etc.
The most important thing for learning is to be inspired and have fun with what you're learning. :)
Re: Ask HN: How do I learn math/physics in my thirties?
#55There is one sure way, and it’s a test of your fortitude. You find a a college textbook with the answers to the even-numbered problems in the back. You sit down in a warm or hot room, and solve them. If the textbook is in its 4th printing or so, the answers are correct. On a few, you’ll have to work for hours. Now here is a very, very, important point. All the learning occurs on the problems you struggle with. In the…
I'll second this idea having survived a Physics BS doing just this. I'd also strongly recommend a series of books called Schaum's Outlines, they vary in quality but cover many advanced topics and have hundreds of solved problems in them.
Re: Ask HN: How do I learn math/physics in my thirties?
#56..s.
Maths.
Re: Ask HN: How do I learn math/physics in my thirties?
#57There is one sure way, and it’s a test of your fortitude. You find a a college textbook with the answers to the even-numbered problems in the back. You sit down in a warm or hot room, and solve them. If the textbook is in its 4th printing or so, the answers are correct. On a few, you’ll have to work for hours. Now here is a very, very, important point. All the learning occurs on the problems you struggle with. In the…
> Halliday and Resnick, early editions , printed in the late 60s and 70s
Any particular reason to recommend the old editions over the latter ones?
Re: Ask HN: How do I learn math/physics in my thirties?
#58Anyone who tells you can "learn" math and pyhsics by just watching videos is lying to you. There is no substitute for actually doing lots of problems. Pick a book, pick a pace to work through it, and spend a few months going through it. Do the exercises in the back of each chapter, work through the solutions, and ask around if you still can't figure it out. Persistance and routine are key here. As for books, I like S…
I second this but starting to watch actual undergrad lecture series is beneficial because sometimes the book your working through May just be missing that one piece of the puzzle you need to start getting enough of a grip to solve a problem.
Also with physics, you need some tricks that are usually done in derivations or calculations (cause not everything can just be solved) and those do not necessarily appear in a book - but they do in lectures.
Edit: the book gives you the fundamentals though on which you work. also, they will teach you the necessary abstraction - the first thing standing in my way of a degree in physics was my intuition and need to picture stuff. working a lot with differential geometry now, I've got some of that visualization back but with linear algebra even and quantum mechanics it can stand in your way.
Re: Ask HN: How do I learn math/physics in my thirties?
#59There is one sure way, and it’s a test of your fortitude. You find a a college textbook with the answers to the even-numbered problems in the back. You sit down in a warm or hot room, and solve them. If the textbook is in its 4th printing or so, the answers are correct. On a few, you’ll have to work for hours. Now here is a very, very, important point. All the learning occurs on the problems you struggle with. In the…
https://books.google.com/books/about/Physics.html?id=8MvvAAA...
Is it that the text you’re referring to? We used the 5th edition in my physics course this year. It was a tough textbook to learn from but I feel like I learned a ton.
Re: Ask HN: How do I learn math/physics in my thirties?
#60I went back to school in my late 20s for this. Ultimately what everyone says is true, you learn the stuff by doing problems and at the end of the day lectures are of marginal use and really the learning happens when it's you and the textbook(s). I personally went back to school because it was a way of putting pressure on myself. There's a lot of boring drills before it gets particularly interesting. The biggest value…
Also, I should mention, one big lesson learned... Maths build on each other. Don't be embarrassed to start with a pre-calculus text/course.
You probably don't remember much from high school, and most low-div calculus problems are some simple calculus rules combined with a bunch of high school algebra/arithmetic manipulation that if you don't have it all ready at your fingertips, you _will_struggle. (this means memorizing all those trig identities again) The hardest part of low-div calculus is this stuff... The actual rules of calculus are simple, easy to grasp and dare I say it, intuitive.... if you can do the pre-calc.