
Calculus Revisited - a complete self-study calculus course from MIT OCW - stiff
http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-18-006-calculus-revisited-fall-2010/index.htm
======
steve918
I also recommend Prof. Strang's book
[http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-18-001-calculus-online-
text...](http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-18-001-calculus-online-textbook-
spring-2005/textbook/) and series of lectures [http://ocw.mit.edu/high-
school/courses/highlights-of-calculu...](http://ocw.mit.edu/high-
school/courses/highlights-of-calculus/index.htm) He explains Calculus in a way
that make it really easy to understand.

~~~
kenjackson
His linear algebra intro lectures are the best I've seen anywhere too... plus
his book is probably the best intro on the topic to date.

~~~
steve918
It really is. Prof. Strang is an amazing teacher of math plus he's just a
really fun, likable guy.

~~~
edw519
Funny, I have always found a very high correlation between "amazing teacher of
math" and "just a really fun, likable guy".

(My experience also includes "musician" and "bridge player".)

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treeface
Great resource, thanks. Another great resource is, of course, the Khan
Academy. See their precalc videos here:

<http://www.khanacademy.org/#Precalculus>

And their calc videos here:

<http://www.khanacademy.org/#Calculus>

~~~
pixcavator
I just wrote a short blog post on different kinds of places to find math
online: <http://inperc.com/blog2/2011/02/24/math-online/>.

~~~
lell
I noticed you included planetmath in your list of encyclopedias. They used to
be an excellent source for definitions and theorems in pure math. But for the
past 3 years, their search has been broken and their rendering has been slow
(each page view lands on a yucky page of unrendered typesetting syntax, which
is replaced by a blank page for more than a few seconds before some 'jsmath'
plugin does something?). They hemorrhaged most of their users during that
period. I found some notes from their board meetings, and they've know about
these issues, they discuss them continually, but they've done nothing for 3
years. It's really sad, because it could have been an alternative to wikipedia
for pure mathematicians.

Another hidden gem for academic mathematics is york university's ask a
topologist: <http://at.yorku.ca/cgi-bin/bbqa> . Regulars on this forum
routinely answer and discuss graduate and research level questions (in algebra
and geometry too, not just topology).

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tricky
I dug out my old calc textbook last weekend because I need derivatives for my
latest hack. Every time I get stuck Khan Academy saves the day.

just sayin'.

~~~
iwwr
Any chance you'd want to share some details about that?

~~~
tricky
sure - I want to teach myself market analysis, so I'm scraping craigslist for
data and fiddling with it. I did some curve fitting so I thought it might be
cool to calculate velocity to, you know, figure out what time the velocity of
people selling macbooks maxes out by city...

derp.

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patricklynch
Another recommendation -

Keisler's Elementary Calculus: An Infinitesimal Approach
<http://www.math.wisc.edu/~keisler/calc.html>

(pulled from this old slashdot thread)
[http://books.slashdot.org/story/04/03/04/028253/Five-Free-
Ca...](http://books.slashdot.org/story/04/03/04/028253/Five-Free-Calculus-
Textbooks)

------
davidsiems
If you've never read it before this book is a very intuitive introduction (and
refresher): [http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Made-Easy-Silvanus-
Thompson/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Made-Easy-Silvanus-
Thompson/dp/0312185480)

~~~
ashconnor
This book is currently out of copyright (published 1910):

<http://djm.cc/library/Calculus_Made_Easy_Thompson.pdf>

~~~
Semiapies
Also available at the Gutenberg project, here:
<http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33283>

It seems to be a rather nifty book.

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balloot
Anyone know of a resource like this where you can take problem sets and/or
tests? For the way I learn, it just doesn't stick unless I can do problems and
correct my mistakes.

~~~
eru
Just get a book, like Concrete Mathematics, and do their problems. Post your
solutions in a blog, if you want people to criticise them. You can ask on HN,
if nobody reads your blog otherwise.

~~~
JabavuAdams
Interesting. I'd like to do this, but I assumed that textbook authors /
publishers would get annoyed.

The obsessive part of me wants to go back through my textbook collection and
do _all_ the exercises.

~~~
eru
Some like `Concrete Mathematics' come with solutions to nearly all the
exercises anyway.

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SoftwareMaven
I kid you not, just this morning I was thinking "I want to brush up on my
calculus", then I go for my morning dose of HN and see this. I like reading
prescient web sites.

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Radix
If you go looking it isn't too difficult to find material like this. Many of
the posters hear have jumped in with their favorite resources. But, where do
you all go when you want to ask potentially dumb questions as you would an
instructor in class or of classmates? Khan Academy has a nice Q/A section for
each video, but the best I've seen is PhysicsForums. Anything better?

~~~
SteveC
<http://math.stackexchange.com>

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binarymax
Thanks for this - just watched the first video. Clearly spoken and well
explained. Will be going through the rest of the course.

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steve918
There is also this series of videos
[http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-01sc-single-
variab...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-01sc-single-variable-
calculus-fall-2010/)

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stcredzero
What are the Calculus applications for startup people?

~~~
eru
Anything related to engineering.

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aguki
Aside from iTunes U, is there any other method to download an offline copy of
the modules (inclusive of a/v content)?

~~~
seancron
There's no bundled zip file that you can download like in other courses,
however you can find the videos at
<http://ia700300.us.archive.org/15/items/MITRES18_006F10/>

Quick wget script to download _everything_ from that directoy:

    
    
        wget -erobots=off -Pvideos --random-wait 1 -nH -nd -N -r -l 1 "http://ia700300.us.archive.org/15/items/MITRES18_006F10/"
    

And then just download the study materials from
[http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-18-006-calculus-
revisited-f...](http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-18-006-calculus-revisited-
fall-2010/study-materials/)

------
ssx
Awesome! A great refresher. {nostalgic of the simpleness of life back in
highschool...study and learn}

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barista
Hope this is how the future of education looks like. Curses like these are too
valuable to be locked in the ivory towers of ivy league schools. Kudos to MIT
for releasing it and hope many other premier schools follow this lead.

~~~
Ygor
Do you think releasing stuff like this might be bad for the university since
the students have the possibility to learn without actually enrolling, thus
depriving the university of some potentially good students?

Or is the effect opposite - good word, good press, good marketing.

Or, maybe I am completely of track and one has nothing to do with the other?

~~~
patricklynch
Well, most (all?) public universities let you check out books from their
libraries without being enrolled. And many professors will let you sit in on
lectures if you're polite and not a disturbance. So in that sense it's been
possible to 'mooch free learning' off of universities for some time.

But this takes away the barrier of having to actually visit a campus. I think
of it as 'freemium' marketing, but for academia.

~~~
eru
> So in that sense it's been possible to 'mooch free learning' off of
> universities for some time.

They are more stingy with grading your exercise questions, because that takes
time. But if you are genuinely interested, you can probably find someone to
grade your stuff; or if you are advanced enough, just try to write a paper.
Professors will probably help you, even if you are not in a university. (Just
offer co-authorship, if necessary.)

