
Mathematics for Computer Science - Lecture Notes - iamanet
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-042j-mathematics-for-computer-science-spring-2005/lecture-notes/
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SandB0x
This is useful, but pretty standard undergrad material. There are more
interesting OCW courses, such as Street Fighting Mathematics:

 _This course teaches the art of guessing results and solving problems without
doing a proof or an exact calculation. Techniques include extreme-cases
reasoning, dimensional analysis, successive approximation, discretization,
generalization, and pictorial analysis. Applications include mental
calculation, solid geometry, musical intervals, logarithms, integration,
infinite series, solitaire, and differential equations. (No epsilons or deltas
are harmed by taking this course.)_

[http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-098-street-
fightin...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-098-street-fighting-
mathematics-january-iap-2008/readings/)

~~~
edge17
cool, are there any vids for this course?

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iamanet
Nope there are no videos but the notes are simple to understand since they are
very clearly explained.

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codewall
I have always been intimidated by college level math and secretly wished I was
smarter to not just understand, but to _enjoy it_ as so many people seemingly
do. I tried but failed to attain that level of proficiency multiple times.

The mistake I was making was that I was trying to read lectures/blogs/books
recommended by random people who knew nothing about me. It doesn't work. The
thing is: math is big. It's HUGE, it's a whole world with something for
everyone, and not everything in there excites me. I discovered this by
accident by picking an easy and fun book about cryptography called (I think it
was called The Code) - it was fascinating, it took me to wikipedia and I
started to explore this world following _my own interests_ And then it
clicked: suddenly even "boring" aspects of math showed me their exciting
sides.

~~~
raju
Is the book you were referring to "The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from
Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography" by Simon Singh?

Amazon link - <http://amzn.to/dlNAeO>

It's on my reading shelf right now, but I have not gotten around to reading
it. I think your comment just might make that happen. Thanks for the
recommendation

~~~
oscardelben
I've read that book although I admit I did not take the final challenges.
Still I found that to be a very interesting book, very well written where you
can actually learn something useful.

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jgg
This is stuff that's usually taught in a course called "Discrete Mathematics".
As far as textbooks go for this type of material, which do you all like? I own
Rosen's famous book ( [https://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-
Applications-Ken...](https://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Applications-
Kenneth-Rosen/dp/0073229725) ), but it's the "James Stewart's Calculus" of
Discrete Mathematics books. I purchased some really old books too, but I
haven't yet found one that I like a lot (I settled for a Dover text that's
mostly passable).

For the specific topic of set theory, though, I haven't found one I like
better than Paul Halmos: [https://www.amazon.com/Naive-Theory-Undergraduate-
Texts-Math...](https://www.amazon.com/Naive-Theory-Undergraduate-Texts-
Mathematics/dp/0387900926)

If I could only find a number theory text that I like as much.

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jlmendezbonini
Good find. Note that the Fall2005 offering includes solutions to the
assignments and in-class problems while Spring2005, the one linked, does not.

[http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-
comput...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-
science/6-042j-mathematics-for-computer-science-fall-2005/lecture-notes/)

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spektom
Do the page "The ZFC Axioms" contain errors? I can't understand the following
proposition:

∃y∀z(∃w(z ∈ w ∧ w ∈ x) ⇒ z ∈ y)

Shouldn't it be:

∃y∀z(∃w(z ∈ w ∧ w ∈ y) ⇒ z ∈ y)

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justlearning
are there any lecture videos available for this course?

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iamanet
Nope ;-) I even searched for related math books by these course instructors
but no luck.

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amichail
Mathematics gets way more attention than it deserves in computing --
particularly with today's sophisticated libraries/frameworks.

Just because a topic can be challenging doesn't automatically make it
worthwhile.

This is a trap that many people fall into.

~~~
endtime
I think the more common trap, into which you appear to have fallen, is
thinking that computer science and software engineering are the same thing.

~~~
bediger
The other common trap to fall into: thinking that all programming problems are
solved. All you have to do is code the "business logic".

A corollary of this is that it's impossible to speed up "business logic" at
all. You have to drop from Java (typically) directly into assembly language.

~~~
amichail
Not all programming problems have been solved, but your time is not unlimited
either. You need to spend your time on what really matters for your
development.

~~~
jgg
Who are you to say that this doesn't matter for someone's development? This
thread reads like you're trying to convince yourself that you don't need to
understand this stuff.

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amichail
I've taken quite a lot of university math courses. Not much is helpful for
what I do in my development.

In fact, not even the algorithms courses I've taken are all that helpful since
most of the hard stuff is already done for you in libraries/frameworks.

~~~
jgg
_to what I do in my development._

What I pointed out above is that there are people who do this stuff in their
development. (-:

It seems like we're caught in this cycle where every 2 or 3 years, a new
framework comes out that everybody rushes to embrace. _Someone_ is writing the
code to build these frameworks, and I guarantee you someone had to worry about
what made their algorithm O(n^2) instead of O(log(n))

I think the reason you're being downvoted though, isn't because you simply
pointed out that some people don't need to know this stuff, because (although
somewhat pointless to state), that's true. Rather, I think the problem was
when you said

 _Mathematics gets way more attention than it deserves in computing_

Because you made no attempt to back it up, producing only evidence of your
particular situation.

~~~
amichail
_It seems like we're caught in this cycle where every 2 or 3 years, a new
framework comes out that everybody rushes to embrace. Someone is writing the
code to build these frameworks, and I guarantee you someone had to worry about
what made their algorithm O(n^2) instead of O(log(n))_

The number of people working on difficult libraries/frameworks is rather small
compared to the total number of developers.

~~~
Psyonic
Many of those people read this site, however.

