A journey resumes...

[JesterArts]

Hi guys,

 

Its my first post here, and I'm setting up some goals, so I was hoping I could get a few mathematics experts set me up with some helpful tips on making this journey in advanced math a success. Allow me a little extra length on my first post here in the maths forums:

 

A while ago I started pursuing one of my larger life goals to learn the more advanced maths. Then I burnt out for perhaps a number of reasons, but lack of motivation was not one...the biggest was simply that I grinded to a hault because of a strange thing I experienced: Thinking I was understanding the rules on the level of algebra, but for some reason, never getting certain problems right at all. A frustrating thing. I concluded my mind was simply not built to percieve such things. Or perhaps I could not call to the front of my mind all the recently learned rules and details necessary for the problem.

 

My ultimate goal is to one day be able to read Einstein's work with an amount of ease. My closer goal is to simply understand calculus.

 

Between that span of then and now, I've come very far in vector and 3d work, as my real skill is design and illustration, in which I make a living. I've recently realized that learning the 3d environment and associated rules has probobly trained my mind with a foundation for many advanced maths...simply knowing the XYZ axis, bezzier curves (visually, not mathematically), certain concepts of topology, gradation, and so forth. I speculate that having witnessed all these things and worked within these parameters so much, I will now learn many mathematical explanations with an amount of recognition, having seen these frontiers in a different light, in 3d and vector art.

 

So, I do not want to fail or fizzle this time. I've heard that learning mathematics is simple: Just do it. But I would like to know what else is going to help, to make my time well spent, and to train my mind which seems to be less geared in this area.

 

I will appreciate any experience you can relate. I'll be around here quite a bit, when I get stumped especially. I'm rather hoping I can meet my calculus goal within a year.

 

The purpose of this education is to explore certain ideas I've had for some time.

[foodchain]

Its a ground up type of learning, like most anything. Now I will stop short of saying its probably some aspect of evolution in the sense of a metaphor, but that’s how I look at it. The simple aspect of even knowing what integers are, or real numbers, all of it matters because its a system that relates to itself in many regards. I am in algebra still, lucky for me I only have to do only so much calc and more or less about a year of statistics, but such is fun at times, more so when you become more fluent with the use of a calculator.

 

It is a time consuming event though, so with that my best advice which I guess would hold with anything really is practice makes perfect.

[Bignose]

My advice would be to consult as many different sources as possible. Unless you are trying to learn something cutting edge, there are always many different ways to approach and hence lots of different things have been written about the subject. For example, you mentioned learning calculus. There are probably over 100 different calculus textbooks out there -- it is a very well studied and written about subject. The point is that if one text, or how one author writes about a topic doesn't jive with you, go and find another. Chances are someone out there has written a book that will approach a subject just like you would. You just have to find them. Again, in the realm of calculus texts, they range from your typical univeristy level text, to proof-driven and more abstract advanced calculus back down to Calculus for Cats by Amdahl and Loats (which actually covers the material for a calc 1 class pretty well... I was skeptical from first glance at the title, too). So, use your local library and inter-library loan well. Try out as many different points-of-view as you can. Like I said, chances are at least one of the books will really click for you.