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Options for Adults with Renewed Interest in Math?
Internet Ninja asks: "After only doing mathematics in high school level and in my first year of University, I've suddenly developed an interest in mathematics. Since that was now almost 10 years ago I'm a little rusty. Anything past pythagoras is a little tough for me :) but I know I could get back up to speed quickly. I could probably steal my daughters math textbooks and start reading but I'm wondering if there is a better way. I considered a part-time University paper at US$495 each and you need to do two as bridging courses in order to even start on undergraduate courses. A bit pricey when you have a home and family to look after as well. Another option was a night courses but I'm kept pretty busy with work. Does anyone have any advice or good resources?"
Yeah, because amazon is evil, but B&N isn't, right? Get with it.
...he said what I meant but better...
Buy from Powell's. They're less evil than either of the others... and you haven't lived until you've spent a Saturday in their City of Books [pdf].
Guvegrra?
hey, me too, particularly the part about 10 raised to an irrational exponent z defined as e^(z ln[10])
here's my simple, two-step process for improving your math skills:
(1) put a calculus book in your bathroom
(2) eat a lot of spicy food
i thought, therefore i was...
I was trolling with the experts on afu as long ago as 1994. I don't care about your trolling. Perhaps I meta-trolled you?
I went to university as a young, green freshman thinking I wanted to learn. After a couple of years there I realized that all I wanted was a degree. I'm a person who is genuinely interested in learning and I follow the latest math and science news with great interest. However at university they spend a lot of time teaching you procedures for applying formulas, because those make the best kinds of test questions. I find that type of knowledge very mundane. I would rather decide for myself the kinds of things I want to learn.
Your experiences may vary, but I would have dropped out of university a lot sooner if I had thought I could do so without endangering my earning potential. But there are a lot of people who attend university because they want to. Do you really think most of these students would pay tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, to get the official diploma if they didn't have to? Many of these students used to stand in line to get a refund for the $5 "voluntary" contribution to the school paper.
Your analogy is stupid. As if the $50,000 that one might spend to get a "brand name" education somehow relates to whether you will pay $20 for a CD or steal it off the net. I can only speak for myself, but when I buy a CD, I buy it for the music. I don't steal it off the net because I'm a fairly honest person, but I will buy it from a used CD store if I can get a better price.
Anyway, back on the original topic. I think the story submitter needs to decide what kind of knowledge about math he wants to learn. I have an interest in math, but I don't need to apply it in real life, so I am content to read about cryptography, logic, fractals, Fermat's last theorem, and all the pop-math stuff. You can find excellent books for the lay reader, with the best probably being "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid". Martin Gardner's columns from Scientific American have all been archived and published in book form. As for learning whole subject areas, try to skim a variety of books rather than reading one in depth. That way, you will get a better grasp of the subject matter (and if you find that you prefer one of the books over the others, at least you have a point of reference).
-a
How to rationalize theft.