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Ask HN: Where do you, personally, go to learn mathematics online?

4 points by trcollinson ↗ HN
I am an engineer and entrepreneur with a fairly broad but not terribly deep understanding of mathematics, mostly in the are of number theory. Deep down I really enjoy learning about and discovering more about mathematics. It's such a fun topic with so many facets and, heck, I can do with with not much more than a pencil, a note card, and my brain.

It seems like engineers and developers are always asking great questions about where to find information on algorithms to improve their coding skills or to prepare for an interview or test. There is a lot of information online from basic algebra and geometry to single and multi-variant calculus and beyond. With that I am curious to see is what others do to learn "higher" levels of mathematics outside of a University setting. By higher I mean topics at or above first year, single variable calculus.

What sorts of mathematics knowledge goals do you have? To know more generally, to know more mathematical application, to keep up on your skills from college, or just to get by with an algorithm in an interview?

Do you feel like the information you get online is useful? What kind of learning experience do you wish you could have with math online?

How committed to learning more higher levels of mathematics do you think you would be outside of a University setting?

Obviously anything else you would like to share would be great!

3 comments

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Bahamut
Learning mathematics outside of a mathematics curriculum at a university is difficult, largely due to the fact that in higher level math classes, the professors become more like mentors - their aim is to guide you to approach problem solving with the right intuitions, and to prevent the all too easy rabbit hole of getting caught up in one approach to oblivion.

No text can provide you with this sort of benefit.

I came into software engineering after leaving research level mathematics. What I have found is that there are no shortcuts around investing a massive amount of time reading textbooks and trying to solve problems/figure out proofs. The time investment itself is what bakes the knowledge into your head.

This probably isn't what you wanted to hear, but at least do weigh these thoughts in.

trcollinson
Actually that's a brilliant answer! I absolutely believe that in order to really succeed in mathematics one must pay their dues in time. You put it exceptionally well.

My thoughts of the day is, would it be possible to mentor people through this process online. I quite often tutor my university age son, his friends, my neighborhood kids, and colleagues in single variable calculus level math. I was looking around and couldn't find a lot of resources online to really teach math. Sure there is text and simple explanation, even some courses like MIT opencourseware and such. But nothing that really replicates the experience of learning math, if that makes sense.

And now, in fact, it does make sense. Because it lacks the mentorship of a university professor. Now the question is, does: is a good University classroom the only way to get that level of mentorship?