Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: A math study program?

news.ycombinator.com

31–40 of 63 posts

Re: Ask HN: A math study program?

#31

IMO, the clear choice for this is Math Academy. It was started by a very, very early Uber contractor who built the early versions of their dispatcher, their profiler and also the grid system that helped them scale and pretty much saved them during new year's in 2013. Since becoming wealthy from Uber's IPO, he's been pouring money into hiring experts and building the curriculum. The first step was a non-profit program…

jeez, what kind of 11th and 12th grade curriculum teaches topology, real analysis etc...? Is this a syllabus for math whiz kids?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: A math study program?

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

jeez, what kind of 11th and 12th grade curriculum teaches topology, real analysis etc...? Is this a syllabus for math whiz kids?

The "High School" Curriculum is basically an undergraduate mathematics degree.

I can't tell if they believe they have cracked the code that makes learning these concepts accessible or if they are suffering from a severe case of expert syndrome, totally unable to put themselves in the shoes of a novice.

Re: Ask HN: A math study program?

#33

IMO, the clear choice for this is Math Academy. It was started by a very, very early Uber contractor who built the early versions of their dispatcher, their profiler and also the grid system that helped them scale and pretty much saved them during new year's in 2013. Since becoming wealthy from Uber's IPO, he's been pouring money into hiring experts and building the curriculum. The first step was a non-profit program…

jeez, what kind of 11th and 12th grade curriculum teaches topology, real analysis etc...? Is this a syllabus for math whiz kids?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: A math study program?

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a self taught programmer/dev and started getting interested in signal processing, systems of pulse coupled oscillators, and machine learning. So I figured I should "learn the language" so to speak.

did khan academy give you enough knowledge to have the background required to understand ML ? My company heavily focuses on ML/Statistics and i want to understand what they are doing so i'm trying to self study statistics as a first start, any courses you recommend?

Not the poster you're replying to, but yes definitely. I worked through the Algebra 1, 2, Differential Calculus, Differential equations, Integral Calculus, Linear algebra, Multivariable calculus, Statistics and probability, and Trigonometry course.

And to answer your other question, here's the stats module: https://www.khanacademy.org/math/statistics-probability

Re: Ask HN: A math study program?

#35
A book I always recommend to folks looking to learn mathematics with lots of beauty and from first principles is Serge Lang's Basic Mathematics.

The book starts from axiomatic arithmetic and works all the way up to what you would need as a mathematics major with a focus on pure mathematics. He also manages to touch some beautiful areas like geometry, abstract algebra, symmetry, linear algebra, set theory and more.

There are only a handful of exercises at the end of each section and they are very good at locking in the concepts. I finished a mathematics degree and realized afterwards that there just wasn't enough of a focus on the concepts and beauty. Even with 4 years of math experience, this book still managed to open my eyes

Re: Ask HN: A math study program?

#36

If you want to get better at geometry a very good start is brilliant.org. They have five great geometry course that's good for learning concepts visually and has some basic exercises, but not enough for drilling. When it comes to exercises, brilliant.org is lacking in volume. Khan Academy is a great supplement for geometry, single and multivariable calculus although brilliant.org goes a bit further than Khan Academy…

for linear algebra, maybe this one too, along with Axler, and Strang https://minireference.com/

Axler is very mathematical, focusing on vector fields in the abstract as opposed to matrices, Savov is what you need to get through engineering school, Strang straddles both

also ulaff.net ... more in the realm of, all about matrices, as opposed to pure math

Re: Ask HN: A math study program?

#37
post #9

Khan Academy. I completed all their Math modules over the course of a Summer and, frankly, learnt more from their content than I had in 10+ years of mainstream Math education. I feel like if I had done it sooner I would have been an A* student, which haunts me a little. Despite studying engineering up to postgraduate level, I tended to avoid any concept that required a deep understanding of the Mathematics behind it.…

Could you maybe share the order you did them? Or maybe the order you would do them knowing how it went?

Re: Ask HN: A math study program?

#38

IMO, the clear choice for this is Math Academy. It was started by a very, very early Uber contractor who built the early versions of their dispatcher, their profiler and also the grid system that helped them scale and pretty much saved them during new year's in 2013. Since becoming wealthy from Uber's IPO, he's been pouring money into hiring experts and building the curriculum. The first step was a non-profit program…

Good morning, HN! It's Jason (the founder). My wife (co-founder and co-conspirator) just woke me up to alert me to a sudden spike in demo requests, so I'm a little blurry-eyed at the moment (was up late last night trying my best to get the marketing site functional), but I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Re: Ask HN: A math study program?

#39

IMO, the clear choice for this is Math Academy. It was started by a very, very early Uber contractor who built the early versions of their dispatcher, their profiler and also the grid system that helped them scale and pretty much saved them during new year's in 2013. Since becoming wealthy from Uber's IPO, he's been pouring money into hiring experts and building the curriculum. The first step was a non-profit program…

jeez, what kind of 11th and 12th grade curriculum teaches topology, real analysis etc...? Is this a syllabus for math whiz kids?

Well, it turns out that when you have mathematically-talented students completing Calculus in 8th-grade, and move on the Linear Algebra and Multivariable Calculus in 9th, you eventually reach Real Analysis and Topology by the end of high-school - although, we haven't gone quite as deep in those particular subjects as the others mentioned. But we do comprehensively cover Differential Equations, Discrete Mathematics, Probability & Statistics and Abstract Algebra.

Re: Ask HN: A math study program?

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

jeez, what kind of 11th and 12th grade curriculum teaches topology, real analysis etc...? Is this a syllabus for math whiz kids?

The "High School" Curriculum is basically an undergraduate mathematics degree.

Yeah, pretty close, although it's not like most universities will allow students to skip straight to graduate school. Our first cohort of students just graduated this past year, so we're just now getting a sense of how this is likely to play out.

My son, who's majoring in CS, is starting with 300 (junior-level) courses in both math and CS - although the departments were happy to allow him to start even deeper in the curriculum if he wanted. Another student, who collaborated with one our our math PhD instructors on some original research that's about to be published, is starting with at least one graduate math course this year (the last I heard, anyway).

Post reply on HN