
Ask HN: How to get good at math if you are too bad with math - throwaway2211
I am too bad at doing math, starting from algebra, trigonometry, calculus etc. I am a good programmer though, I can glue api's and do some pretty good programming. But I want to get knowledge and work on some advanced computer science topics. How can I improve my bad mathematics and get good at both math and CS? I have a full time job. So all i can do is study on my own. Please help
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karlzt
check out this funny, yet effective, introduction to calculus book from 1914:
<http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33283/33283-pdf.pdf>. Richard Feynman used
this book and then learned calculus at age 15.

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pasbesoin
For those who want to know the title without having to examine a PDF:

Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus Phillips Thompson

<http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33283>

P.S. Gave you an upvote. Just would have preferred to know the title / have a
pointer to a non-PDF reference since one was available.

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kaybe
If you want real maths and not just calculating, you'll need to do lots and
lots of exercises. It's best if someone more experienced can grade them (it's
hard to judge your own proofs), but looking at solutions helps too. You can
get books for that (I don't know about ebooks), just ask around and have a
look inside (Is there a university with a library nearby? You can try there.),
different people need different books.

I like the math part of The Art of Computer Programming (in the first book) by
D. Knuth. It has exercises with solutions and, as the name says, is orientated
towards maths useful for programming. Plus, it's a good read. The whole series
came highly recommended, but I'm still in the first part, so I can't judge it
yet. ^^

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mhd
I'm in a similar situation. Mathematics (just like drawing and some languages)
is a big item on my Someday/Maybe issue, so I collected some materials but
haven't gone through most of them yet. So take the following stuff that was
recommended to me _cum grano salis_.

\- George Polya - How to Solve It

Interesting book on proofs and a logical approach to problem solving. Original
title was "School of Thinking"…

\- Lancelot Hogben - Mathematics for the Millions \- Silvanus P Thompson -
Calculus Made Easy

Two older books that came well recommended (have been mentioned in this thread
already). Not sure if that's due to the readers or their teachers nostalgia or
well founded yet.

\- The Manga Guide to Calculus

Erm, yeah. (I did like the Manga Guide to Databases, though)

\- Benjamin & Shermer - Secrets of Mental Math

How to do mental arithmetics quickly. Good for igniting the spark and impress
your friends…

Also, some book on mathematics by Russian, who employ some different methods
in teaching, but I can't find the book nor its title right now, must be in
some moving box. (Generally, talk to Russians. They're creepy when it comes to
maths and chess)

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S4M
I realized that most people (including me) sometimes fail to understand some
maths notions because they don't try enough to understand them. What I mean is
that some notions are complicated, really complicated, and often people with
good will go straight on doing exercises, hoping that somehow, that will make
them understand. So my advice is: dont rush. Try to understand the core
principles. There are theorems, try to understand how to prove them. Will the
theorems still hold if you remove some hypothesis? What can happen?

Of course the way of learning I suggest is not easy or fast, especially for
someone who is busy with a full time job, but I guarantee that if you do it
you will build for yourself some solid grounds, and you will feel yourself
more intelligent.

Out of interest, I am curious why you need to become better at maths.

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throwaway2211
I want to learn advanced CS so that i can do more interesting jobs. Like
Machine learning or Large data analysis. But for most of that i will need to
be good at math. So i need to learn math for that.

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tgerhard
What are you interested in? How in depth are you willing to study? I'm
basically in the same boat and recently out of the blue developed a passion
for math. I found there are plenty of free books available online. Right now
I'm studying combinatorics, but every so often I take a couple of Khan Academy
classes on trig. You might also want to check out Project Euler that offers
the chance to combine math and programming.

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ral
I just checked out Project Euler - awesome, thank you!

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medinism
I would start with number theory and getting very good at managing numbers in
your head. I bought a book "how to calculate quickly" to help me with that.
MOst algebra and calculus problems could be solved quite easily by running
approximations in your head that solve the equation at hand. I learned this
method from prof Feynman in his famous book "you must be joking Mr Feynman"

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phektus
[http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/eohrr/to_everyone_who_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/eohrr/to_everyone_who_posts_about_learning_more_math/)

So head to khanacademy.org, start with algebra and work on all exercises. Then
go to the other subjects.

I highly suggest you pick one particular graduate level math subjects and
sounds interesting to you and make that your goal.

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horofox
Study algebra and trigonometry fist(basic stuff that you should have studied
in high school) then proceed to study calculus. It's REALLY pointless trying
to go calculus not knowing proper algebra at least, believe me :P

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dataduck
I actually help people with this kind of thing for a living, as a personal
tutor - drop me a line if you're interested.

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ekm2
Visit ArtOf ProblemSolving.com(AOPS).That is the HN of Mathematics.

