4 ms·
I am kinda disappointed the "math foundations" (first part) does not have the word "logarithm" anywhere on the page, as this is for cs / AI. The CS part of thi
by mrobot 5y ago
I am kinda disappointed the "math foundations" (first part) does not have the word "logarithm" anywhere on the page, as this is for cs / AI.
The CS part of this thing (different page) does talk briefly about logarithms, but just a little. In one part it says "A (base-10) logarithm of a number is essentially how many digits a number has."
The final (AI) part then ends up needing exponential functions and logarithmic functions. It references a book
"Obtain the book Mathematical Modeling and Applied Calculus listed in the beginning of this page via library genesis or other means, and skip to chapter 1.4 Exponential Functions. There is a short demonstration here that assumes you have a basic idea what a derivative is from the other above videos. Read chapter 1.5 on inverses, then 1.6 Logarithmic Functions. By read I mean leisurely skim through the material knowing when to go practice or read more in depth later if needed."
I skimmed the three chapters of the book to see how they teach it, and i really kinda didn't like the way they approached it and what they leave out. I think even if you understood everything there, you wouldn't really have a good understanding of log and exponent, what e actually is, how logs relate to each other, how they relate to polynomials, how exponential funcs relate to doubly exponential ones and so on... just like good roots to be able to understand complexity really well. I dunno.
It's a draft right? Maybe they will fix that up and make it more self-contained. I don't think i would really want to do it like this from scratch. Math is too often taught in such a mechanical way without really explaining how everything relates. I want people to actually really have good intuition about the things i teach them before i use them as requisite to teach them something that requires them.
Is AI really a good place to start? Why even do it this way?