Steven Strogatz on chaos theory, game theory, and why math isn’t boring

Re:Steven Strogatz on chaos theory, game theory, and why mat... by gravypod on Sunday November 27, 2016 @10:14AM (#13049530)

I'd be willing to spend a good 40 bucks on something like this (that may not seem like a lot but 40$ to a college student is a lot). Something that has a twinkle of a promise in teaching a programmer math is something I need in my life.

I just don't "get" what is being told to me when it's in the context of math-notation. As a result I do horrible in math classes in college. The only thing that was taught with a CS-Style notation was approximating using Newton's method. After I saw that it made sense, it was just a recursive method that zeroed in on that location.

Very little aside from that in my calc 1 class made sense. Probably limits, but that's it really. It didn't click as well.

I'd like to get to the point where I understand math concepts as well as I do most of the CS but I just think that's impossible at this point. It seems to be very "this is our garden, you stay in yours".

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Steven Strogatz on chaos theory, game theory, and why mat... by j2kun on Sunday November 27, 2016 @01:09PM (#13050428)

In anticipating a book like this, would you ideally want to learn the math context and notation (provided one goal of the book is to teach that), or skip that entirely in favor of the underlying ideas (as in your example with Newton's Method).

Also, would you be interested in being paid to read a chapter or two and provide feedback?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Steven Strogatz on chaos theory, game theory, and why mat... by charlieflowers on Sunday November 27, 2016 @02:41PM (#13051000)

Not the GP, but I'd want to learn both the ideas and the notation. That way, more math would become accessible to me.

Just don't let the notation get in the way of reaching clarity on the ideas.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Steven Strogatz on chaos theory, game theory, and why mat... by gravypod on Sunday November 27, 2016 @03:43PM (#13051411)

Yes exactly. It seems that no matter what you know math majors don't care. You need to walk the walk and talk the talk.

If you read through my comment history you will find me arguing with many mathematicians who think that math is just inherently harder and I must not understand it because I'm not smart enough. I think that the concepts and basic building blocks seem simple when explained outside the context of the current notation used.

You can see a perfectly prime example of this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12991581

Read through my comments to see how I feel.

I'd also like to be clear. I'm not saying math is easy, I'm just saying that it can't be impossible for my peasant brain to not be smart enough to understand the concepts of what's going on. I mean it's not Greek.... well... it currently is but it doesn't need to be!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Steven Strogatz on chaos theory, game theory, and why mat... by jacobolus on Monday November 28, 2016 @04:00AM (#13054250)

The concepts are not individually hard, but they build on each-other (sometimes unnecessarily, but sometimes very helpfully). If you care about understanding the tools you should take the few years of study it takes to learn the notation to a level of fluency, or you won’t be able to read the vast literature written in that notation.

It’s like if you’re interested in 19th century piano music, but all your experience with reading music is in the form of guitar tablature, then you’re going to have a tough time with your study. You could conceivably find top-down videos of someone playing some of the music you care about, or convince someone to translate some parts of it into guitar tablature. But it would be a better use of your time to just learn to read standard music notation.

[ Parent | on HN ]