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Offer HN: Free Maths Lessons

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Re: Offer HN: Free Maths Lessons

#21

Post by jcr »

ColinWright wrote: post #20
jcr wrote: post #14

On behalf of all of HN, thank you for the kind and generous offer of your time and expertise. Though a lot of people excel at learning on their own, many human beings are trained to learn better through courses. The examples, direction and structure provided can really help. I never bothered to take calculus in school (distant decades ago), and never bothered to seriously study on my own (e.g. dedicated learning work…

"Calculus Made Easy" by Silvanus Thompson (updated by Martin Gardner). http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Made-Easy-Silvanus-Thompson/d... (And you probably know this, but "Calculus" isn't the same as the "Lambda Calculus" - your comment makes it appear that you've confused or equated the two.)

Thanks for the suggestions, both the book and the clarity (previous post edited).

Re: Offer HN: Free Maths Lessons

#22

Post by jcr »

ColinWright wrote: post #17
jcr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Colin, don't let the down-votes get you down... if you pardon the pun. Some people mistakenly think clickables are just karma whoring because they don't realize it is (intentionally) impossible to put clickable links into a submission. Additionally, they're also probably not thinking beyond their own use-case, where the (intentional) annoyance of copy-paste is painful on mobiles.

tl;dr - thank you. It's just that there are days when I get depressed by the fact that so many people on the 'net and using sites like HN have a sense of entitlement - insisting that they really understand everything and that - God Damn It - they'll impose their own way of working and thinking and voting, without taking the time to become enculturated. At least, that's how it feels. I just need to take another break.…

I hear you, and read your HN profile missive, but this is taking us off-topic. Unfortunately, you don't have an email address listed in your profile, or I'd take it up with you off-site per se. My email address is in my profile, contact me if you want to discuss it.

Re: Offer HN: Free Maths Lessons

#24

Post by dataduck »

jcr wrote: post #14

On behalf of all of HN, thank you for the kind and generous offer of your time and expertise. Though a lot of people excel at learning on their own, many human beings are trained to learn better through courses. The examples, direction and structure provided can really help. I never bothered to take calculus in school (distant decades ago), and never bothered to seriously study on my own (e.g. dedicated learning work…

For university level physical applied mathematics, Boas: (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mathematical-Methods-Physical-Scienc...)

I'd also recommend Riley, Hobson and Bence, which has all the benefits and disadvantages of being bigger: (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mathematical-Methods-Physics-Enginee...)

For A-level, most students I've taught want me to follow their school course, so I've mostly taught out of an array of textbooks of varying quality. On the whole, the standard A-level course books for EdExcel, AQA, OCR and the like are adequate, but only really as part of a taught course. If I cast my mind back, Bostock and Chandler was quite good, although I suspect it will be a bit retro by now with respect to syllabus changes - it was old when I was learning this stuff for the first time. That said, mathematics is one of the more stable subjects and the fundamentals don't change very much, so I'd definitely recommend looking at it. Obviously, if you're not looking for something to pass an exam with, classic books become a lot more appealing.

Re: Offer HN: Free Maths Lessons

#25

Post by wizche »

I'm building a simple Android 2D game on my free time which involves some maths (ball bouncing, colliding algorithms, ..), what I would really like is some refresh of Linear Algebra (Vectors, Projections, ...) and Physics that I may easily apply to the game itself. How may I contact you? I can't see any contact details on your profile.

Re: Offer HN: Free Maths Lessons

#26

Post by stg »

timruffles wrote: post #15
rojabuck wrote: post #11

I am just about to begin a part-time open university mathematics degree (mature student) as part of a process to get over my fear of mathematics. I have a GCSE in higher mathematics but sometime between being a school kid and starting a PhD I got the fear. I messed up 2 attempts at AS level, mostly due to other priorities of being a 17 year old, I mucked up my PhD due to the fear (who would have thought robotics & vi…

I'm doing this right now - MST121 and MS221. I'm finding it a pleasant challenge without having done anything more than GCSE maths. It's finding the time to do the study that's tricky. Say hi if you've got any questions about the course - doing the revision you've mentioned sounds a great idea.

So you are studying both at the same time? How do you manage that?

I'm currently working through MST121 myself, it takes a surprising amount of work (compared to you I'm obviously a slow studier as my total commitment is about 2 hours a day, luckily my commute consists of two, one hour train journeys) but I'm finding it really enjoyable, if not therapeutic, a chance to get away from the real world... sadly very much an attitude I wish had when I was younger.

I was actually so rusty I had to take MU123 initially, it was a bit mundane in parts but I was glad I did, there was so many of the basics I had forgotten.

Re: Offer HN: Free Maths Lessons

#27

Post by beck5 »

Thank you very much for the offer, this is something I love to do and would be ideal for me, I was a lazy teen and dropped maths after GCSE when I really shouldn't have (I droped just about everything hard, I was a very kevin and perry teen and went to a bad school). 10 years later I really regret this, I would love to understand the basics of things like analysing algorithms, encoding/encryption stuff etc. I've moved into CS relatively late and the lack of maths has caught me out when it shouldn't. I am currently finishing off a masters in Information Systems which has gone fantastically well but my maths is still lacking by miles. Networks was particularly hard when it came to understanding things like encryption.

I have watched a couple of MIT videos on introduction to Algorithms but they were a bit beyond me so I need to take a step back first. I've watched a few kahn videos but there is just so much I am not quite sure where to put my time. I have thought about taking a Maths A level course at some time when I get time but this year has been full on with other learning.

I start my first professional developers job at the end of September and being able to just do some basic big-O would be amazing. This thread is actually becoming valuable for links and recommendation to other resources I should explore.

Re: Offer HN: Free Maths Lessons

#29

Post by stg »

rojabuck wrote: post #19
timruffles wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm doing this right now - MST121 and MS221. I'm finding it a pleasant challenge without having done anything more than GCSE maths. It's finding the time to do the study that's tricky. Say hi if you've got any questions about the course - doing the revision you've mentioned sounds a great idea.

You mention that your doing both 121 & 221 at the same time. When I was reading up about the course they recommended only doing this if you had A level (or above) and could commit 16 hours per week. How does that stack up to your experience? Does the course have a good staring gradient? I spend my life coding (in the finance industry) and am un-fazed by the mathematical challenges it throws up daily but am utterly pe…

I had that fear too (like yourself, the last time I touched mathematics was during my GCSE's and I wasn't exactly a prodigy then) and it was exactly why I did MU123 first rather than jumping into MST121 despite that fact I think I could have handled it.

I reasoned that by being thorough and starting from the beginning (i.e. the most basic module) that I was not likely to encounter any concept later on in the course that had not previously been introduced to me. Hence no ambiguity. Rather convoluted logic I know, but it worked for me.

Re: Offer HN: Free Maths Lessons

#30

Post by udzinari »

first of all, thank you very much for this generous offer, it is very kind of you.

----

i am currently working in networking support (cisco stuff), but i know some python and common lisp. i am very interested in programming, compiler technology, languages (i speak 3 and currently learning 4th) and teaching (i worked as a trainer for cisco networking academy for 7 years).

i am mostly self-taught, learned english mostly from reading books/docs and listening to music/tv. i know little about many things and much about few, if any.

currently i am trying to change my job to programming because i want to gain experience in the field and ultimately get a chance to implement some of many ideas and help develop some which i would love to see advance (e.g. what sal khan is doing).

i see mathematics as a very important skill that i need to master since it is in big part connected to all of the domains i am passionate about. my current skills are pretty slacking but i do have good imagination and learn fast.

the most recent physics/math problem i have is directly connected to one particular job opportunity. i am developing a python application which does certain sound singnal analysis and will also include various software testing practices including some code analysis. this project will serve as a demonstration to my potential employer that i have mastered the skill enough to be hired. i am using khanacademy heavily for basic stuff, but most of the things are not covered there and many a time i have to rely on wikipedia solely.

if you are interested in any of the following areas i can teach you in exchange: learning a rare and unique foreign language, programming basics, networking, linux stuff. i am in a bit of a trouble with time-frame though since i am in CET zone and i don't really have flexible work hours.

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