Mathematically illiterate question

Hello lainons I am 19, and since I finished my first year of high school I haven't interacted with mathematics at all. At the time, I was completely uninterested in mathematics, and frankly I don't remember anything. The average 12 years old probably knows more about mathematics than me. With time, I realized mathematics are extremely important. My illiteracy in this field becomes each day more and more of a shame, which has prompted me to "get into it". I have numerous things to study, and adding something to the list is almost destined to fail. However, in a brief moment of motivation, I looked up where to start, and Serge Lang's book Basic Mathematics came up. Do you think it's appropriate for someone who can't differentiate algebra from calculus (although in my country, they aren't taught separately nor named like that) ? Please feel free to recommend me other works to start with, just no pop science soykaf. Thank you for your insights.

best would be to start doing the thing where you think you need it and then figure out what kind of math you need and then dive deeper into that

go see some educational videos or books that you feel comfterble with learn by doing

>>44552 It may sound extremely monotonous or stupid, but it is good. Get yourself some chinese kids mathematics solver books, and solve a page or whatever a day. Start with simple and short questions(7*3 etc.) then move up the ladder as you see your speed and intuition improve. Intuition by the way, is very important. Many talk of concrete, but a lot of the times mathematics is fluid like art. As such having a good intuition and feels for the flow of the equations is imperative. I myself for example, do all my mental multiplication in chinese. For me, it is faster and more intuitive. There is a flow and I understood it. Intuition of small and easy things eventually builds into the complex, allowing for your mind to explore mathematics more freely and much more comfortably. Good luck on your journey!

>I looked up where to start, and Serge Lang's book Basic Mathematics came up. Do you think it's appropriate for someone who can't differentiate algebra from calculus? I looked up the book. Apart from looking/feeling dry, the material looks good. If you feel like you don't fully grasp a concept after a while, feel free to move on onto the next topic. You'll leave a certain gap, but the following chapter may help fill it up if the concept is used in another goal. :) You may also use other supports like videos, or online forums, on those difficult topic of course. Have fun!

Oh! And feel free to highlight passages you believe are important, and even write notes about what you learn. It'll help you cement those ideas in your head. I prefer doing this step with pen & paper. It's how I used, and preferred, to take notes and theory during my academic years.

ok just how illiterate are we talking either way my advice is to look at some easy maths stuff on youtube since i think that will get you interested in it and show you what parts of maths you like personally. if you want to learn maths in general it's good to see examples

>>44552 Serge Lang is a well known mathematics writer. His Basic Mathematics looks like it covers typical high-school level mathematics well, looks like an excellent start. It presents basic material in the kind of format you will see in higher level textbooks, if that is your future goal. I would skip the proof exercises (I don't know why they are there in the first place?) unless you want to go hard into maths later, but do make sure to do at least half of the exercises in each chapter, even if you feel like you get the material, because often there are many holes in your understanding otherwise, you will only fill them by application, seeing you made mistakes and understanding why you made them. Keep us updated on how you go :) >>44569 >Apart from looking/feeling dry, the material looks good. Nothing is worse than the awful textbooks they write for high school curriculum. Even the dryest textbook feels more lively than those things. I only started enjoying reading textbooks when I read ones aimed at undergraduates. I remember picking up an undergrad book on computer architecture in tenth grade, and for once in my life felt joy doing exercises.

Thank you all for your answers ! I think I'll get some videos on YouTube, shouldn't be hard to find. If any of you have recommendation of specific exercise book, YouTube channel, etc, please tell me ! >>44572 Besides extremely basic operations, I'd say I know nothing. To get an idea of how illiterate I am, Pythagoras and Thales are stuff I don't remember. And concerning what my aim is : I'm a history/language students. I don't really need mathematics for my academic plans, but I need it for several personal endeavors. Among other, I want to have basic compsci knowledge, wanna do linguistics, wanna read economics. And in general, having a working knowledge of maths to discuss basic science topics. Thanks again for your answers !

>>44580 I wish you good luck in your studies. Personally, I think youtube, or videos in general, are a very poor way to learn. The main issue is the lowered attention requirement. On the other hand, reading an article from a book/blog/forum requires you to actually focus. Youtube makes this even worse as creators have to compete in the attention economy; your 30 minutes explanation video has to compete against a flood 30 seconds shorts. I believe you should try to find some mathematics you're interested in. Since you've mentioned having academic plans, you'll probably have statistics and data modeling classes. These are not the mathematics people generally look forward to, but they're omnipresent in all of academia. Also, linguistic, specifically grammar, is very close to language theory, which is a field of algebra. Personally, I got really interested in fractals during my first year of high school, and having a graphing calculator, I decoded to learn it's language. After that, I learned a real computer language, and that gradually got me interested in mathematics. I ended up majoring mathematics in uni, because my local uni offered a better math course compared to CS. Later, I got really interested in how calculators worked. Sure adding and multiplying numbers is easy to figure out, but how does the sqrt/sin/cos/exp functions worked? That later led me to study floating point numbers (the ones used by computers), in terms that led me to study many other fields at the intersection of compsci and math. In terms of study materials, I think free online uni courses are good. Wikipedia is an extremely good source of information, but exercises are what will make you better at a topic. You may store raw knowledge in your brain, but applying that knowledge constantly is what will make you better at problem solving. That's why most people learn languages by doing projects, and not by just reading the docs/syntax. You can also study from books. Books are generally more advanced, and I know some undergrad math books that once you complete (if you're able to) would make you a living legend in any undergrad class. However since you're in high school, you should try to study the materials they give you. When a school topic really interests you, make sure to study it more thoroughly than what the teacher originally intended. Just pull up the Wikipedia page, and you'll see a more generalized version of what you studied in school. You'll also find out that it's generally harder to study on your own, mainly because you have no one to ask questions to. In my days I went to the math channel on freenode. But today I think chatbots might be good for that, as long as they're not the ones doing your homework.

>>44665 seconding this. Youtube videos can be a fun way to explore new ideas and find new directions you want to study, but reading a good textbook and doing the exercises is going to give you much more real understanding. >But today I think chatbots might be good for that, as long as they're not the ones doing your homework. Yup. The best would be a tutor or someone else with lots of experience who is willing to check your work on exercises and answer questions, but if you're isolated or too embarrassed or don't have the money a chatbot could serve that purpose as well. Sycophancy of chatbots is less of a problem in mathematics than in other fields. But with chatbots as well as humans, always know that you are capable of verifying if something is true or false. Constantly try to evaluate what is being told to you and fit it in to your existing knowledge. If it doesn't, point out why. It could be an error or something that wasn't explained properly.

>>44580 finding good videos is kind of hard, it's like saying "oh, just find a good book". I don't agree with the others that it will kill your attention spam, for all purposes it is like assisting to a lecture, and learning some stuff just from the books can be difficult, so here is my advice: try reading this book; it's the fundamentals, don't bother reading it back-to-back, whenever you feel like you understand a chapter, just go to the next. if you get stuck with something, here are lectures with explanations https://ossu.dev/precollege-math/ after that, you can start with undergraduate calculus, here are lectures + course notes (it's easy to find intro. to calc. books): https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-01-single-variable-calculus-fall-2006/resources/lecture-1-derivatives/ and linear algebra. imo you can try starting this before finishing the others, it doesn't require that much previous knowledge and it's widely used in fields like economics https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-06-linear-algebra-spring-2010/resources/lecture-1-the-geometry-of-linear-equations/ alternatively, there are plenty of "math for computer science" books, once you have the fundamentals you can start with that rather than with undergrad calculus and algebra

well, the file didn't get posted for some reason, but the book is "precalculus" by sheldon axler https://files.catbox.moe/xhkmm4.pdf