Math From Scratch – Plan and call for input

As previously announced, starting January 1, 2011, there will be a new math lesson posted here every three weeks until all the math that I know has been posted. Half of the lessons for 2011 are now written, and several other lessons heading into 2013 are roughed out on my outline. This is a call for input: at this stage in the planning, the real numbers and basic algebras have been put in place. Based on that, the next lessons can establish geometry, linear algebra, calculus, and more. Which topics do you, our readers, want to see prioritized? Speak your piece below or by direct e-mail. Users of the free (and Free, and highly recommended) yEd software can download the current plan from this link. (Right-click and save to make sure it loads in yEd.) Numbered blocks have specific lessons associated with them, blue blocks are lessons which have been written, and arrows lead from prerequisite topics to later topics. Some topics may be combined into single lessons or divided into multiple lessons as I get to the actual writing. I’ll try to keep that link up to date, along with the Bureau 42 event calendar.

5 replies on “Math From Scratch – Plan and call for input”

  1. Being a computer geek, I guess the topics that interest me are the kinds that might be helpful for computer geekery: two things I always wanted to learn was queue theory (useful for networking, scheduling) and signal processing (all kinds of funky things, also it’s cool bananas). I’ve never really been successful at learning it though, since I have terrible foundation of math :(.

    I’d like to get up to speed on the foundations required to truly learn these topics. So, the kind of math that leads up to it.

    • I’ll have to look into queue theory and see what it entails. For signal processing, the stuff I’ve seen comes out of Fourier transforms and the like, so that’s calculus first followed by ordinary and partial differential equations. I’d want to lay down analysis first, too, as that always helped me understand what I was doing.

  2. Hi man! After your physics training I want to learn something about pattern recognition, there is a lot of content but it’s not so basic I guess. What about linear algebra?

    • I’d have to learn pattern recognition myself first. I’m always up for a challenge, but it may take a while. As for linear algebra, that’s likely. In fact, this whole project came about when I tried doing a linear algebra summer school course and found I wanted to lay down a huge amount of other algebra first. I felt what was written was somewhat awkward by lesson three, though I’m still extremely happy with lesson one. What was done before the projected was aborted and turned into this can be read here.

  3. Note that the “Math From Scratch” plan is now available in PNG format in addition to the original graphml format for those who choose not to install yEd. Note that yEd doesn’t seem to have a browser plugin, so you’ll need to save the file and open it explicitly if that’s the route you’ve taken.

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