People to study math with...

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Hi, I've been learning algebra,trig,statistics and Calculus with the aid of free education via the web. I'm looking for people who actually are motivated to learn math, not for school. These last 3 years I've learned a lot, but would like to understand and learn more. It's hard to find,even in school,people curious and motivated to understanding the number e, I mean really understanding it. Also, I know of no one who sees the benefit of being able to read and actually understand trig formula's, not simply rely on rote memory.

I was wondering if anyone, here, knows of some good resources to help people interested in math learn from each other.

For some reason Math is an almost taboo topic in the United States, or so I've heard never having traveled out of country. Even those who major in math tend to despise it! It's almost as if people hate being challenged. As if people see failure at grasping something as failure itself. I think many people believe falsely that, where language and other education can be more or less learned that math is somehow an innate ability. The truth is that the hardest thing about math is that it can be boring at first and extremely frustrating, it was for me,but the reason I stuck with it and continue to do so is I understand the great advantage of honing these skills.

If this posting didn't give you warm butterflies and fuzzes, then try to read between the lines. My writing tends to come off stiff.
Good day.

physicsforums.com is a good place

Thanks! Jp896.

I'd be interested in helping.

Thanks, Marshall!

If I have a question, I won't hesitate to ask you. I like math more than it likes me, but all the same,I'm kind of hooked.

I've really isolated myself these past three years, so my communication skills have eroded. I went to a meeting for those on the spectrum last evening, but had trouble connecting as I was so focused on math. I feel this has helped open me up a little though. I don't do anything to improve even though I've known I've had the disorder for about 3 years and six months.

Thank you for replying and offering to help me.

Your welcome any time. You can PM me if you feel like it.

My current math obsession has been with Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. At this point I'm not sure I fully grasp the proof of it completely but I've been obsessively trying to understand it. Having an obsession with mathematics can be frustrating because even university and graduate level texts don't always fully explain all their reasoning and I'm quite detail obsessed.

I know what it's like to be lost in my head most of the time at social gatherings when I'm simply not feeling engaged or interested in the company.

I agree, I see FAR too many people saying things like "I could never do math, it's too hard", or "Wow you can add, you must be really smart!". I think most people see it as something reserved for the Stephen Hawkings of the world (As a side note, ever notice how on T.V./movies, any time they show a genius professor or something there's a chalk board behind him with a bunch of random integrals scribbled on it?). The truth is, most math really isn't that hard, it's just memorizing a set of rules and putting them into practice. Heck, with the internet you don't even really need to memorize them, Google does that for you! Now some of the more advanced math can indeed get pretty wacky (4-dimensional graphs???), but most of that really isn't used for any practical purpose.

That said, most people don't really need more than the most basic understanding of math, so there's not much point for them to learn it. If I was going to be, say, an advertising executive, I wouldn't need to know much more than how to add and multiply. The same goes for the majority of non-technical fields, I'm not exactly going to be calculating triple integrals as a cashier.



Well that's because you don't really need to understand them to use them...some people that lived a while ago did all that work so we wouldn't have to . If I was going to re-derive and fully investigate every mathematical formula or parameter I've come across, I'd still be stuck 10 years in the past!! That said there are some things that you DO need to understand to be able to use effectively, and those are the ones I usually put the bulk of my effort in.

Also I agree with the physicsforums.com suggestion, lots of extremely smart people on there (warning: they will make you feel stupid). May not be the best for pure learning though, since for one there is some faulty information on it (as with any online forum), and since it's mostly just people answering questions rather than going through complete descriptions.

Stargazer43, thanks for your email. Yes, those integral signs on the chalkboard look very scary before one learns how to take anti-derivatives. It's like looking at some sort of whacked out outer-space alien high tech scrawling.

But using a formula or rule without ever going through the derivation, or even gaining a vague intuition that can help me believe it should always give the correct answer, takes all the fun out of it for me.

This sentence seems bizarre to me. Understanding and proving mathematics is what mathematics is. What is the point in memorising a formula, and then repeatedly replacing the letters with numbers in order to obtain a number? That is literally the most boring thing in the world. It's much more interesting to rephrase the formula as a careful mathematical statement, and then try to prove the statement.

If anyone would like to discuss math/ask about math I might be of help. I'm study maths at undergraduate level and I'm in my first year.

Thanks, Roy K! Good luck on your studies! Of course there is no real luck involved, but perhaps you may have optimal learning experiences. I'm at the moment working on Internet Marketing, but could be drawn back into a topic. If you have any interesting thoughts or anything you would like to share having to do with mathematics that would be good. Marshal has been helping me with understanding how to better geometrically understand the Integral. I'm not a person who has a great aptitude for math, but I respect and have even learned to enjoy mathematics,since most all things are built on its foundations. But if you have a question I'm not the source to go to. I couldn't help you.

I've been looking at Georg Cantor's work of late...fascinating stuff. The connection between his work and fractal geometry is also worth exploring from many angles.

Vectors are killing me right now, the way I arrange them and the way the textbook arranges them are different. I'm in the same boat as you though, as frustrating as it is to break into, it's the only way to understand most technical fields. What areas are you struggling with?

I guess I'd advise people to start individual threads if they have things they'd need help with, as it'd be hard to keep track of one massive thread otherwise. That being said, what are you having trouble with MDD123? I'm also happy to try and help via PMs if anyone needs .

Rote cannot lead to even a basic understanding of Math(s), I agree.