4 ms·

Ask HN: Programming to learn math?

13 points by HiroshiSan 10y ago

Hey Guys, I'm doing an undergrad in math and would like to learn programming to help me better learn math, are there any intro programming books with a large emphasis on math?

tkosan 10y ago
I am the main developer of the MathPiper open source computer algebra system (http://mathpiper.org http://mathpiper.org). An effective kind of programming language to learn that will help you learn math is a programming language that is part of a computer algebra system. The following video shows MathPiper solving an equation step-by-step: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy6bwNBkAK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy6bwNBkAK0 If you are interested in learning the MathPiper programming language and how this solver works, feel free to contact me using the email address that is in my profile.
- HiroshiSan 10y ago
  Cool! I'll check out the documentation and definitely shoot you an email if I have any questions.
oveddan 10y ago
Try learning shader programming. It's math based and you draw beautiful visualizations that represent math equations. An excellent tutorial is at http://thebookofshaders.com/ http://thebookofshaders.com/
- HiroshiSan 10y ago
  This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for thank you.
a-saleh 10y ago
What math would you mean? Calculus? More on the "building the theory" or "being able to do differential equations" Algebra? Linear? Group-theory? Discrete math? Logic? Proofs within logic systems? Completness theorem? Graph Theory? There is lots of different parts of math that would be suited to different kinds of projects :-)
trelliscoded 10y ago
The Mathematica book might be what you're looking for.
Koshkin 10y ago
You can try Functional Differential Geometry by Sussman and Wisdom (which exists both as a printed book and as a freely downloadable PDF file). It is an interesting experiment in teaching mathematics by heavily relying on the computer for doing symbolic transformations, which requires the complete clarity in the notation and the understanding of the material.
temp246810 10y ago
One thing you may be interested is numerical analysis. You can take this course as part of your major (it's usually required, but sometimes it's an elective). This will guide you through some basic programming and teach you big O notation to boot. You'll also do analysis on same basic algorithms. The only drawback in my opinion is that the course is usually taught in MatLab which you won't be able easily translate into building a small web app or something if you wanted to. Overall, was very happy with the course - served as an intro to programming of sorts.
tom5 10y ago
You asked a good question and I do think programming is a good way to help lean math. This is a good book: Numerical Recipes http://nrbook.com http://nrbook.com
ranc1d 10y ago
Alan Downey's books makes use of programming to get across ideas in statistics, probability and complexity if those areas are of interest. See here books are free to read online. http://greenteapress.com/wp/ http://greenteapress.com/wp/
- HiroshiSan 10y ago
  Wow! What a wonderful resource thanks so much.
rajacombinator 10y ago
I think the other way around makes much more sense ...

13 points by HiroshiSan 10y ago

Hey Guys, I'm doing an undergrad in math and would like to learn programming to help me better learn math, are there any intro programming books with a large emphasis on math?

tkosan 10y ago

I am the main developer of the MathPiper open source computer algebra system (http://mathpiper.org http://mathpiper.org). An effective kind of programming language to learn that will help you learn math is a programming language that is part of a computer algebra system. The following video shows MathPiper solving an equation step-by-step: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy6bwNBkAK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy6bwNBkAK0 If you are interested in learning the MathPiper programming language and how this solver works, feel free to contact me using the email address that is in my profile.

HiroshiSan 10y ago
Cool! I'll check out the documentation and definitely shoot you an email if I have any questions.

oveddan 10y ago

Try learning shader programming. It's math based and you draw beautiful visualizations that represent math equations. An excellent tutorial is at http://thebookofshaders.com/ http://thebookofshaders.com/

HiroshiSan 10y ago
This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for thank you.

a-saleh 10y ago

What math would you mean? Calculus? More on the "building the theory" or "being able to do differential equations" Algebra? Linear? Group-theory? Discrete math? Logic? Proofs within logic systems? Completness theorem? Graph Theory? There is lots of different parts of math that would be suited to different kinds of projects :-)

trelliscoded 10y ago

The Mathematica book might be what you're looking for.

Koshkin 10y ago

You can try Functional Differential Geometry by Sussman and Wisdom (which exists both as a printed book and as a freely downloadable PDF file). It is an interesting experiment in teaching mathematics by heavily relying on the computer for doing symbolic transformations, which requires the complete clarity in the notation and the understanding of the material.

temp246810 10y ago

One thing you may be interested is numerical analysis. You can take this course as part of your major (it's usually required, but sometimes it's an elective). This will guide you through some basic programming and teach you big O notation to boot. You'll also do analysis on same basic algorithms. The only drawback in my opinion is that the course is usually taught in MatLab which you won't be able easily translate into building a small web app or something if you wanted to. Overall, was very happy with the course - served as an intro to programming of sorts.

tom5 10y ago

You asked a good question and I do think programming is a good way to help lean math. This is a good book: Numerical Recipes http://nrbook.com http://nrbook.com

ranc1d 10y ago

Alan Downey's books makes use of programming to get across ideas in statistics, probability and complexity if those areas are of interest. See here books are free to read online. http://greenteapress.com/wp/ http://greenteapress.com/wp/

HiroshiSan 10y ago
Wow! What a wonderful resource thanks so much.

rajacombinator 10y ago

I think the other way around makes much more sense ...