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Immersive Linear Algebra – A free interactive online book

immersivemath.com

11–20 of 80 posts

Re: Immersive Linear Algebra – A free interactive online book

#11

This looks awesome. The popup-help's are a little jarring though since there's no indication as to which words will trigger a popup. Also: "Oh come on, you should know what a vector, v, is by now. Check out Chapter 2, for crying out loud." seems kind of harsh to say to the reader while they're reading the first sentence of Chapter 2..

"Kind of harsh" is an understatement. Insulting the reader like this is not acceptable. Mathematics is already difficult enough to learn by its very nature. Authors, you don't need to help make it more difficult. We already have a hard enough time convincing people that they can learn something this difficult.

Re: Immersive Linear Algebra – A free interactive online book

#12
I never studied math in college, in fact I barely studied math in high school. It was always daunting to try to parse the notation and figure out how the abstract symbols corresponded to some piece of reality.

When I became a self-taught developer I found my math skills continuously lacking. I started teaching myself on Khan Academy and really picking it up a lot better because of the simplicity of the language and the good examples. I finally realized I learned math best visually.

Interactive lessons like these are great. There are things that can be improved about this book (load times and enhanced interactivity) but all in all this a great resource for people that learn best visually. I'll come back to this soon in my future self-education.

Re: Immersive Linear Algebra – A free interactive online book

#13

70 seconds to load a chapter? That's a terrible benchmark for even for some of the heaviest websites out there! This may not be a popular opinion but I (and many ordinary readers like me) see that link as a website. Not a book. It feels heavy and overwhelming to see a large number of 3D diagrams and visual depictions on just one web-page. Having to scroll down to read the full chapter with all that animation and "mot…

> 70 seconds to load a chapter?

The full note says "up to 70 seconds on tables." On my computer it took less than 2 seconds.

Re: Immersive Linear Algebra – A free interactive online book

#14

70 seconds to load a chapter? That's a terrible benchmark for even for some of the heaviest websites out there! This may not be a popular opinion but I (and many ordinary readers like me) see that link as a website. Not a book. It feels heavy and overwhelming to see a large number of 3D diagrams and visual depictions on just one web-page. Having to scroll down to read the full chapter with all that animation and "mot…

> 70 seconds to load a chapter? The full note says "up to 70 seconds on tables." On my computer it took less than 2 seconds.

It took over a minute on mine; but I'm sure they're hammered right now.

Re: Immersive Linear Algebra – A free interactive online book

#15

This is actually pretty cool! I spent the last few weeks going through Gibert Strang's popular OCW course[0] & I'm sure this would serve as a great companion. I can't wait for the chapter on Eigenvalues to be published as that is something I don't yet grasp intuitively. Great work and thanks for making this free and accessible! [0] http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06-linear-algebra-...

shoutout to LAFF as well

- https://www.edx.org/course/linear-algebra-foundations-fronti...

- http://www.ulaff.net/

might be good for you if you're motivated by a deadline, graded progress, some Matlab/Octave implementation, and certificate of accomplishment, vs. self-paced Strang (AFAIK).

Re: Immersive Linear Algebra – A free interactive online book

#17

Is this available in an off-line bundle? I am becoming increasing wary of online books/training/applications that can not be read locally. If I am going to take the time to read through a full book (possibly weeks of reading) I want to be able to use/reference it in 5 years like my paper books. most of the value of a good math book is that years after reading it you can use it as a reference to look things up you wil…

While I don't disagree with your comment, I think once you've learned this material you could reasonably look it up in a different book. Put another way, going through this course might greatly increase the value (to you personally) of having any other linear algebra text available. It's not necessary to look things up in the same textbook you learned them from.

Re: Immersive Linear Algebra – A free interactive online book

#18

This is actually pretty cool! I spent the last few weeks going through Gibert Strang's popular OCW course[0] & I'm sure this would serve as a great companion. I can't wait for the chapter on Eigenvalues to be published as that is something I don't yet grasp intuitively. Great work and thanks for making this free and accessible! [0] http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06-linear-algebra-...

shoutout to LAFF as well - https://www.edx.org/course/linear-algebra-foundations-fronti... - http://www.ulaff.net/ might be good for you if you're motivated by a deadline, graded progress, some Matlab/Octave implementation, and certificate of accomplishment, vs. self-paced Strang (AFAIK).

+1

LAFF is great

Re: Immersive Linear Algebra – A free interactive online book

#19

Is this available in an off-line bundle? I am becoming increasing wary of online books/training/applications that can not be read locally. If I am going to take the time to read through a full book (possibly weeks of reading) I want to be able to use/reference it in 5 years like my paper books. most of the value of a good math book is that years after reading it you can use it as a reference to look things up you wil…

While I don't disagree with your comment, I think once you've learned this material you could reasonably look it up in a different book. Put another way, going through this course might greatly increase the value (to you personally) of having any other linear algebra text available. It's not necessary to look things up in the same textbook you learned them from.

This issue has come up with MOOCS also. If you look at the MOOC sites they offer there class content including videos as downloads. Even tho most of the MOOCS are introductory courses and you probably would need to get a good book to go along with them lots of people were requesting downloads of the content. There is a variety of reasons why people want off-line bundles. Its just something I have gotten use to with this sort of content.
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