4 ms·

I don't care too much about mental arithmetic, but I care a lot about my "mathematical literacy." I find that reading anything "mathy" can quickly become hard

by Tycho 10y ago

I don't care too much about mental arithmetic, but I care a lot about my "mathematical literacy." I find that reading anything "mathy" can quickly become hard to follow. Sometimes it seems the authors are being very obtuse by introducing variables and not specifying what they represent (also doesn't help that they are all greek letters which I forget the names of). But regardless, I'd love to be able to read pages of mathematics as easily as I can read pages of source code. Anyone got tips for that? Is there some sort of bootcamp for learning the language of maths? I feel the language part can be disentangled from the problem solving part. The same way one doesn't need to be able to come up with brand new algorithms to read and understand the algorithms used in computer science. I don't want math superpowers, just math fluency...

cshenton 10y ago
I've found a good basis in abstract math makes a really wide range of mathy stuff accessible. The first two chunks I would tackle from a high school math + college calculus foundation would be set theory and group theory, and though it's an oldie, I'd honestly recommend Russel and Whitehead's "Principles of Mathematics" for the former as a start.
westoncb 10y ago
The 'Princeton Companion to Mathematics' has the best introduction I've seen to understanding what mathematics is, and what the most important, orientation-giving concepts are. I think your problem is missing implicit context; once you begin understanding what mathematicians value and how various branches interrelate, and how parts of it developed historically—it becomes much easier to follow all kinds of mathematical writing. The intro is about 150 pages, and somewhat dense, but with work definitely accessible to someone with little knowledge of mathematics. I wish they would sell it separately from the rest of the book because it's that good, but unfortunately it comes attached to another thousand pages of material you probably won't have a use for unless you get into mathematics research.
nandemo 10y ago
Try "What is Mathematics?" by Courant et al. However, you might be mistaken about language and problem solving being independent.
Existenceblinks 10y ago
In history mathematics was not for everyone[0], not in the same sense as isn't today. IMHO, having chance to learn mathematics is a privilege. Most people not even have chances to train "mental arithmetic", "mental survival" is more likely a thing. Sorry for not answering your question. [0]: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/mathematicians-are-overselling-the-idea-that-math-is-everywhere/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/mathematicia...
asafira 10y ago
I tutor on the side, and it's often for this very reason. I am not sure of any particular source that makes this easy, but the majority of technical things written are written by people who don't really have a reason to have especially strong communication skills, especially communication skills for people that might not be familiar with some of the basics. Since this is HN --- I actually think this is a business opportunity. People would pay plenty for the best educational resources, at varying times in their life, and having good explanations of things is a valuable resource.
- Tycho 10y ago
  I have actually thought about getting a tutor for this reason. Do you think tutoring is a good solution for this particular goal?
  - asafira 10y ago
    Yes, but only if you are putting time into it on your own outside of tutoring. Otherwise, sessions will either seemingly not go very far, or you spend a lot of wasted time in the tutoring sessions (just blank time when you are reading and re-reading things that you could have done on your own). A lot of this kind of learning still happens independently even though a tutor can (and usually does!) accelerate the learning.
sn9 10y ago
Are you just reading mathematics or are you also doing mathematics?
- Tycho 10y ago
  Just reading.
  - sn9 10y ago
    That's probably the biggest problem, then. You can't understand mathematics without doing mathematics anymore than you can understand a complicated program without having a commensurate amount of experience in programming.
CurtMonash 10y ago
I was proud that my PhD thesis was about 1/3 as long as one in the humanities might be, counting by pages. Then I realized that it probably would take just as long to read out loud. :) Mathematics is dense. Period.

by Tycho 10y ago

cshenton 10y ago

I've found a good basis in abstract math makes a really wide range of mathy stuff accessible. The first two chunks I would tackle from a high school math + college calculus foundation would be set theory and group theory, and though it's an oldie, I'd honestly recommend Russel and Whitehead's "Principles of Mathematics" for the former as a start.

westoncb 10y ago

The 'Princeton Companion to Mathematics' has the best introduction I've seen to understanding what mathematics is, and what the most important, orientation-giving concepts are. I think your problem is missing implicit context; once you begin understanding what mathematicians value and how various branches interrelate, and how parts of it developed historically—it becomes much easier to follow all kinds of mathematical writing. The intro is about 150 pages, and somewhat dense, but with work definitely accessible to someone with little knowledge of mathematics. I wish they would sell it separately from the rest of the book because it's that good, but unfortunately it comes attached to another thousand pages of material you probably won't have a use for unless you get into mathematics research.

nandemo 10y ago

Try "What is Mathematics?" by Courant et al. However, you might be mistaken about language and problem solving being independent.

Existenceblinks 10y ago

In history mathematics was not for everyone[0], not in the same sense as isn't today. IMHO, having chance to learn mathematics is a privilege. Most people not even have chances to train "mental arithmetic", "mental survival" is more likely a thing. Sorry for not answering your question. [0]: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/mathematicians-are-overselling-the-idea-that-math-is-everywhere/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/mathematicia...

asafira 10y ago

I tutor on the side, and it's often for this very reason. I am not sure of any particular source that makes this easy, but the majority of technical things written are written by people who don't really have a reason to have especially strong communication skills, especially communication skills for people that might not be familiar with some of the basics. Since this is HN --- I actually think this is a business opportunity. People would pay plenty for the best educational resources, at varying times in their life, and having good explanations of things is a valuable resource.

Tycho 10y ago
I have actually thought about getting a tutor for this reason. Do you think tutoring is a good solution for this particular goal?
- asafira 10y ago
  Yes, but only if you are putting time into it on your own outside of tutoring. Otherwise, sessions will either seemingly not go very far, or you spend a lot of wasted time in the tutoring sessions (just blank time when you are reading and re-reading things that you could have done on your own). A lot of this kind of learning still happens independently even though a tutor can (and usually does!) accelerate the learning.

sn9 10y ago

Are you just reading mathematics or are you also doing mathematics?

Tycho 10y ago
Just reading.
- sn9 10y ago
  That's probably the biggest problem, then. You can't understand mathematics without doing mathematics anymore than you can understand a complicated program without having a commensurate amount of experience in programming.

CurtMonash 10y ago

I was proud that my PhD thesis was about 1/3 as long as one in the humanities might be, counting by pages. Then I realized that it probably would take just as long to read out loud. :) Mathematics is dense. Period.