I was always good at arithmetic - still am. I could add and subtract large numbers before kindergarten and easily picked up multiplication, long division, and fractions when someone showed me, around 1st grade. In 4th grade, when my teacher was in her 3rd trimester and didn’t have an assistant, she had me teach multiplication and division to the other students. At the end of the 6th grade, when they were preparing us all to be split up between regular, remedial, and advanced math the next year, I was the only one who got selected for the advanced class before the test.
Now, I know that all sounds an awful lot like bragging, but I’m about to go in the opposite direction. That advanced math class in the 7th grade was a pre-algebra class. I completely lost interest in math at that point and have been absolutely horrible at it ever since then. I squeaked by my state’s minimum math requirement - Algebra I - only after taking the class 6 or 7 times (I went to an alternative high school with 6 sessions per year instead of 2) and that’s as far as I’ve gone in math to this day. Every time I try to attend a college math class I end up getting major anxiety a few weeks in and dropping out.
I have major confidence issues with higher math - I feel like I can’t learn it, I’m incapable.
Why would I want to learn a subject I dread so much? Well, I’ve had a lifelong affinity for science - especially physics and cosmology - that has really stagnated from not being able to make any sense of the math.
I’ve read about all the great scientists, but I’ve never been to finish, for instance, A Brief History of Time, although I’ve owned a copy for over a decade. I can read virtually nothing Einstein wrote.
Lately I’ve found myself re-gravitating towards all of my science books, but still ignorant of and intimidated by all the math.
I think the most important thing in Calculus is knowing what things are in a conceptual way, rather than just a plugging-in-numbers way. Understanding derivatives, for instance, in terms of slope and rates of change, rather than as a formal limit with a bunch of f’s and x’s and h’s. If you can find a book that explains the CONCEPTS well, then you should be okay.
TJDude is right - the first step is to grasp concepts like infinitely-small changes and the infinite sum of infinitely-small changes. It blows your mind at first, but once you get it, the applications become easy to understand.
If you can’t find a class to join, I recommend this. I haven’t taken the course myself, but I’ve heard good things.
I echo the notion that aptitude for math is very different for aptitude for arithmetic. But higher math can certainly be taught to the self, as each part of higher math was discovered or invented before it was ever learned. You would know better than we would whether you can teach it to you.
It’d be great, though, if you could make friends with a mathematician…
Sure you can teach yourself. I’m teaching it to myself right now in my spare time, and I’m no math whiz.
Mathematician friends are good, of course, and I would also recommend that you join this messageboard. They’re really good at helping you with problems without actually giving away the answer.
I’m starting to like math, although I don’t have much time to practice it. Good luck with this, Napier. Teaching yourself math is a good, good thing.
If I’m reading the OP correctly, he hasn’t got a solid grounding in high-school algebra. Calculus recommendations might be a bit premature.
You might want to take a look at the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Algebra and similar books. It’ll be a gentler introduction than a math class, although you would need to supplement that particular book with a source of exercises.
I used this book to teach myself algebra. It’s expensive, and being comprehensive, it will take you a long time to get through it, but when you finish, you will know algebra and trigonometry well enough to get through calculus.
Another thing that helped me was buying GRE guides and going through the math preps. They’re not enough on their own, but they’ll help you develop your math chops enough to get through simpler problems and move on to the more advanced stuff with a minimum of fuss.
I never had geometry either. I went from algebra to calculus. One thing that bothered me with calculus was the whole, why am I doing this? Why am I working with these functions and why am I learning derivatives? Why does the behaviour of this function on a graph matter to me? Basically, it was a very one sided approach to learning- meaning that it seemed, and felt that the goal was to cram this stuff into my skull and then pass me along to the next class. All this and maybe, just maybe, I’d use this knoweldge again someday.
I like the suggestion of getting books that study the concept, and to really study that. Unfortunately, I think most math books are written by math scholars, who, frankly, are a cm away from Rainman, meaning they see everything they study in a way others may not and can not easily grasp and work with.
I agree generally with all the advice in this thread. I do, however, have to let you in on one horrible secret: you never have enough math. No matter what level you get to, some portion of the people in the physical sciences are writing out equations that you can’t comprehend. In general, algebra and trignomety can get you a general introduction to two basic branches of physics: mechanics (the study of ordinary objects and motion) and electricity and magnetism. Calculus lets you study those topics in more depth. Calculus will also let you begin serious chemistry in a mathematical way. But if you study chemistry further, you’ll discover that modern chemistry depends heavily on modern algebra (also called “abstract algebra”, which is something totally different from high school algebra). And then there’s quantum physics, parts of which also need modern algebra. And then string theory, which depends of noncommutative geometry, which is incomprehensible even to most of us with a math Ph.D.
I’m not trying to discourage you, just to warn you against thinking that it will all become obvious once you reach a certain point in the study of math.
Sorry, I’ve always associated the term advanced math with anything from algebra on up. Maybe I subconsciously got the idea from the Advanced Math class I mentioned in OP. I guess that further illustrates my ignorance of the subject.
Too true. Outside of the SDMB, most people think I’m some sort of math genius, and I don’t consider myself to have mastered even the basics of advanced math. IIRC, the story of solving Fermat’s last theorem involved the principal researchers teaching themselves some of the mathematics that would be required to solve the problem, and in the end, only a handful of people, at least at first, could even begin to comprehend the proof.
Perhaps before getting down to the nitty gritty of teaching yourself algebra and beyond, it may pay to read a book like What is Mathematics?. Note that if you organize all the reviews of the book from lowest to highest, the lowest review is four out of five stars, and says “an excellent help in understanding and exploring and using mathematics more effectively.” The book covers a very broad spectrum of mathematics, and helps to put whatever bit you’re working on into the broader picture. Another option might be The Norton History of the Mathematical Sciences which covers, well, the history of mathematics up to, IIRC, the late 19th century (when the topics exploded in to myriad areas too many to cover in one book). I enjoyed them both.
Personally, I also suggest auditing math courses at a local college. (Auditing courses is generally quite cheap and you don’t have to worry about making grades.)