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Agree. For me it was games. While other kids complained about algebra, I recognized it as exactly what I had been doing with my little Apple II games, basicall
by wanderingstan 11y ago
Agree. For me it was games.
While other kids complained about algebra, I recognized it as exactly what I had been doing with my little Apple II games, basically fumbling on my own. Now each math lesson was a chance to make my games even more interesting.
My first graphing calculator had a simple example of 3D point rotation. It was like learning a magical incantation! (This is pre-internet.) My friend and I were so excited at the possibilities and immediately wrote a primitive ray-tracer.
The point is: by connecting it to games, we were literally hungry to learn more math.
- PeCaN 11y agoThe other benefit is a lot of math intuitively makes sense in the context of using it for games. I started learning linear algebra when I was ~14 or so because I was trying to make a 3D game and had a specific idea of how the camera should operate—quaternions, once I got past the sci-fi name, just made sense in the context of rotating the camera around. That, in turn, made complex numbers a piece of cake when I got to them in school.