So.. Maths

[Narj]

Hey chaps,

I'm doing a lot of programming these days and I'm finding that my maths is really letting me down. I did calculus and similar level subjects at college but I've forgotten pretty much everything since then. I am really useless and the most complex maths I understand is in the areas of algebra and trig, along with some probability.

What are my options for bringing things back up to scratch? I really can't face reading wikipedia as my brain just shuts down as soon as I see the complex formulae. Are there any popular curriculums that colleges do as night courses that I could consider? Should I think about doing an access course and perhaps A Level maths at a local college?

I must say that I bitterly resent posting this, because as a teenager in the 8-bit world, I was writing some really mental stuff based upon gemoetry and fractals. I just can't remember much!

Cheers muchly!

 

[Narj]

Khan Academy would be fine
What did you get at A level? If you received a good grade the first time, then chances are you just need a little brushing up.

I scraped maths for engineering at BTEC HNC level tbh... keywords I remember are differentiation, integration, polynomials. Our teacher was a genius but i struggled. I got close to top marks in everything but maths.

I've never had problems with applied mathematics at all (formulae, transposition etc). Pure maths has always destroyed me and my confidence, though. I really do appreciate the beauty of maths and what it can do, I just can't get my head around most of it.

 

[Narj]

just out of curiosity as i dont know anything about programming but why is maths important for that?

When you get asked to do statistical analysis on huge amounts of data, or to write an algorithm involving some sort of complex function, you soon drop your bowels when you realise that you don't actually understand how to mathematically solve the problem.

Do you still have that big green book that all the engineering courses seem to use? If not then I suggest you get it (I've forgotten the name, was it Stroud or something like that?) and work through the relevant sections. The easiest and best way in my opinion is just to work through the logic of the math and that book seemed to lay it out rather well.

Then again I've never had to even look at it and still got top scores so what do I know

I did have that/those book(s) and I think I burned it/them in some sort of ritual as soon as I passed....

EDIT: khanacademy looks good but I think I would probably benefit more from 1 to 1 tuition or night classes in all honesty.

 

[Narj]

I ended up dropping it, but with the help of Khan Academy i think i can learn stuff as an when i need it now. The thing with programming is that you have to pick apart whatever you want to do and apply it at the most basic level, which while more time consuming would help (well, me at least) to grasp the concepts.

I'm absolutely fine with picking things apart and dealing with them logically, I'm just completely unable to fulfil the requirements when it comes to doing something remotely more than fundamental maths wise. If someone gives me a large database and asks me to do some sort of analysis on it beyond the basics then I'm stuffed. I can't even remember how to begin with long-term trending, for example. I would probably take a median of x periods and work out an average difference over the period from the start and the increment between start and end, which is most likely completely wrong.

 

[Narj]

Thanks for all the replies, chaps, Khan academy actually looks fantastic! I'll spend a bit of time on there at the weekend.