I have a problem.
I do not like math.
I am not very good at it, nor have I ever really been.
Second problem, I am a Physics major.
I love Physics, but I don’t like math. (Yes, this is possible)
Unfortunately I have since discovered that no matter how much I try, it is a little difficult
to avoid the stuff when dealing with Physics.
So of course I most learn to get along with math or give up the subject that I love and end
up running off to Biology or Philosophy.
My problem with math is that it never seemed real to me. Instead math was always like
some complicated game made up and filled with arcane, arbitrary rules. I imagine it was
the same folks responsible for D&D.
I think that I must have missed some vital philosophical foundation of math when I was
quite young, and am now stuck. Some sort of “Ah-ha!” moment that all of my fellow
students who run through the math textbooks with an almost fetishists glee and hold an
equal scorn/pity for my desperate reliance on my TI-89 (God bless you Texas
Instruments). So what I want to know is if there are any good books or places on the
Internet that can explain mathematics starting from its most basic number-theory level and
extrapolate from there (preferably up to algebra).
I do love physics, in high school I even designed a linear accelerator for a senior project (I
love when I can work that into a conversation ;)), and so far in college I have managed to
worm my way up to second year calculus, but I don’t know how I will make it through the
advanced levels of differential equations, electromagnetic, and such. Please, I don’t know
if I can bear to let go of Physics, so tell me, what is it that I missed!?!? What is it that
everyone else sees so that math seems so normal and real to them? I occasionally get
some sort of insight, some flashes of understanding, but these quickly fade as I am forced
to rely on the rote memorization of random symbols and patterns that magically reveal the
answers, and describe the events, yet burn at my weary, numb mind.
I can’t tell you about any books off-hand, but it sounds to me like you’ve had some bad teachers in the past. (I think most math teachers are.) I haven’t done math in ages, but I’ve never found it particularly troublesome. The key is to avoid rote memorization and trying to understand the reasoning behind all the fundamentals of math. If you have a logical mind, which I presume you must to some degree if you’re interested in physics, then math will not seem like a bunch of arbitrary rules. Don’t just look at an equation and accept it – try to understand WHY it works that way. Once you understand the equation, you usually don’t have to memorize it. (OK, there are a few out there that you just do have to memorize.)
Basic arithmetic, algebra and calculus IS easy. It’s partly a matter of building on concepts and if you have a weak link anywhere in this chain, then learning advanced concepts will be more difficult. Math is about the most purely logical pursuit out there, so if it seems arbitrary and illogical to you, then you must have had some ineffectual teachers.
I don’t have the cojones to delete a thread in another forum (please do not take the statement literally), but I am willing to make this arrangement with you - if you eat your vegetables and stop fussing at the dinner table I’ll be willing to not nominate it for threadspotting.
As a sort of bump and combined question, does anyone remember a thread that was an explanation of Mathematics from the ground up? I did searches on a variety of keywords in all of the fora that I thought appropriate and came up with nada. As I recall the OPer was a math prof and it was very interesting. If anyone recalls this and can throw me a link it would make my unemployed day…
Maud, I don’t know of any books, but I’ll aks my dad for you. Personally, I think you have lost something somewhere…physics is intimately connected with math, in that I use Physics to make math make more sense. A finely tuned physics sense will push you into the mathematics that work. (The interrelation of position, velocity and acceleration make derivatives/integrals real for me.)
What do you like about physics? It all relates to math and if you can find the hook from what you enjoy to what you don’t ‘get’ maybe it would help…?