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Does anyone know any good books for someone who wants to re-learn (and in some places learn for the first time) highschool math as an adult? I tried Khan acade

Does anyone know any good books for someone who wants to re-learn (and in some places learn for the first time) highschool math as an adult? I tried Khan academy but I honestly find I get impatient watching videos. I did well in my Discrete Mathematics class at university because I found it to be intuitive, but if I'm honest I am not as proficient with even basic algebra as I should be

nickloewen 7y ago
It’s not comprehensive but I really like betterexplained.com. Everything is available online for free (I think) but there are print books and ebooks available now too. I am also finding desmos.com (and their app) helpful for getting insight by visualizing and playing with equations and functions.
- dragonsngoblins 7y ago
  Thanks, I'll give those a look. Lack of being comprehensive isn't necessarily a problem. I had a very strange math education, a lot of what I am bad at or fuzzy on is because I am basically missing parts of highschool due to various reasons. So there are parts I have and parts I don't.
ivan_ah 7y ago
I wrote a book that is exactly what you describe (high school math review for adults), which you can check here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/099200103X/noBSmath https://www.amazon.com/dp/099200103X/noBSmath (~200 pages = compact review of high school math topics with lots of exercises and practice problems) The green book is a subset of the longer book that also covers mechanics and calculus https://www.amazon.com/dp/0992001005/noBSmathMechCalc https://www.amazon.com/dp/0992001005/noBSmathMechCalc (see preview here https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSguide_v5_preview.pdf https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSguide_v5_previ... ) High school math is very deep, so I will not claim to cover all topics, but I present the most useful parts (equations, algebra, functions and inverses, math modelling), so it would be a good starting point. Independent and in addition to the above, you can check out this printable tutorial on SymPy that can also be helpful as a review of lots of high school math material: https://minireference.com/static/tutorials/sympy_tutorial.pdf https://minireference.com/static/tutorials/sympy_tutorial.pd...
- dragonsngoblins 7y ago
  Awesome thanks, I'll check those out too. A very brief skim of the preview pdf makes me think The NoBS guide would be a good fit for me
chongli 7y ago
If you found the Khan academy videos too slow paced then my suggestion would be to jump straight into the problem sets. Keep trying to solve things and if you get it wrong then you can get an explanation of the steps in text form. You don’t need to watch the videos at all unless you’re really stuck, and then you can try skipping around the videos instead of watching all the way through. As I’ve seen written elsewhere on HN: math is not a spectator sport. The best way to learn is to work through problems until you master them. Heck, there are plenty of people in college who never bother going to lectures yet still achieve top grades by putting in the work.
sn9 7y ago
The Art of Problem Solving books are great and have complete solution manuals: https://artofproblemsolving.com/store https://artofproblemsolving.com/store You could schedule review of concepts and problems you understand with spaced repetition software like Anki to keep them in long term memory. (http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html)
rusticpenn 7y ago
I am reading " Burn Math Class: And Reinvent Mathematics for Yourself from Jason Wilkes ". Its pretty good.
injb 7y ago
Here's an alternative suggestion: try to find a set of the 4 books of the OU's MST124 Essential Mathematics 1 [1]. You'll probably pay more for them than a typical teach-yourself-math type book, but it's well worth it. They will take you from basic algebra right up to calculus, with a little linear algebra thrown in, and they're extremely well written. You will have no gaps in your foundation with this approach - all the tricky stuff from basic algebra like negative/fractional exponents, simplifying square roots etc. will become very clear. [1] http://www.openuniversity.edu/courses/modules/mst124 http://www.openuniversity.edu/courses/modules/mst124?

nickloewen 7y ago

It’s not comprehensive but I really like betterexplained.com. Everything is available online for free (I think) but there are print books and ebooks available now too. I am also finding desmos.com (and their app) helpful for getting insight by visualizing and playing with equations and functions.

dragonsngoblins 7y ago
Thanks, I'll give those a look. Lack of being comprehensive isn't necessarily a problem. I had a very strange math education, a lot of what I am bad at or fuzzy on is because I am basically missing parts of highschool due to various reasons. So there are parts I have and parts I don't.

ivan_ah 7y ago

I wrote a book that is exactly what you describe (high school math review for adults), which you can check here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/099200103X/noBSmath https://www.amazon.com/dp/099200103X/noBSmath (~200 pages = compact review of high school math topics with lots of exercises and practice problems) The green book is a subset of the longer book that also covers mechanics and calculus https://www.amazon.com/dp/0992001005/noBSmathMechCalc https://www.amazon.com/dp/0992001005/noBSmathMechCalc (see preview here https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSguide_v5_preview.pdf https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSguide_v5_previ... ) High school math is very deep, so I will not claim to cover all topics, but I present the most useful parts (equations, algebra, functions and inverses, math modelling), so it would be a good starting point. Independent and in addition to the above, you can check out this printable tutorial on SymPy that can also be helpful as a review of lots of high school math material: https://minireference.com/static/tutorials/sympy_tutorial.pdf https://minireference.com/static/tutorials/sympy_tutorial.pd...

dragonsngoblins 7y ago
Awesome thanks, I'll check those out too. A very brief skim of the preview pdf makes me think The NoBS guide would be a good fit for me

chongli 7y ago

If you found the Khan academy videos too slow paced then my suggestion would be to jump straight into the problem sets. Keep trying to solve things and if you get it wrong then you can get an explanation of the steps in text form. You don’t need to watch the videos at all unless you’re really stuck, and then you can try skipping around the videos instead of watching all the way through. As I’ve seen written elsewhere on HN: math is not a spectator sport. The best way to learn is to work through problems until you master them. Heck, there are plenty of people in college who never bother going to lectures yet still achieve top grades by putting in the work.

sn9 7y ago

The Art of Problem Solving books are great and have complete solution manuals: https://artofproblemsolving.com/store https://artofproblemsolving.com/store You could schedule review of concepts and problems you understand with spaced repetition software like Anki to keep them in long term memory. (http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html)

rusticpenn 7y ago

I am reading " Burn Math Class: And Reinvent Mathematics for Yourself from Jason Wilkes ". Its pretty good.

injb 7y ago

Here's an alternative suggestion: try to find a set of the 4 books of the OU's MST124 Essential Mathematics 1 [1]. You'll probably pay more for them than a typical teach-yourself-math type book, but it's well worth it. They will take you from basic algebra right up to calculus, with a little linear algebra thrown in, and they're extremely well written. You will have no gaps in your foundation with this approach - all the tricky stuff from basic algebra like negative/fractional exponents, simplifying square roots etc. will become very clear. [1] http://www.openuniversity.edu/courses/modules/mst124 http://www.openuniversity.edu/courses/modules/mst124?