How do you feel about maths?

I love maths and physics but can't stand linear algebra. But then again, maybe it's just because I'm bad at it.

Least fav subject in school.

Horrible at it I remember when teachers pre cell phone era use to say you can't bring a calculator with you everywhere you go needless to say they where wrong big time.

I just need to know how to count money, I'm all set for life.

I don't mind it. I use it everyday at work.

I wish I were better at it.

It’s frustrating being intelligent enough to see the beauty of the world and its systems yet lack the understanding of the language required to delve into it to its truest appreciation. When you break anything down enough, it’s always math.

I can balance my checkbook. What I would give to be able to grasp the scientific principles of the world around me better, but my mind simply doesn’t work that way.

@MirkoS77:Well said. My math could be better.

Last favorite but it's one of my strongest subjects.

I forget it very easily but learning it I have no problem. Unless it's probably linear algebra which I have never taken. My trig could be better although I got 100% on those exams a few years ago. My Calc is strong too. I'm just not very good at applying math because I hardly ever needed to.

Not very fond of it.

I'm alright with it, if slow. My problem is I'm always paranoid that I get something wrong and end up double and triple checking almost every calculation I do. Eventually I found a way to break them down into simpler calculations I'm less likely to get wrong, and only multi-check the harder ones I'm not sure about.

Terrifying. I was very much raised on the "hit and berate until they get the right answer" school of teaching maths. Anything beyond addition, subtraction, multiplication or division is a lost cause with me.

...why....WHY!.....why did i choose computer science for my degree!?

I love all those things.

Linear algebra is awesome for solving systems of equations and doing cool shit with matrices.

Calculus is also fucking awesome. It gives you the tools to analyze things that change over some parameter.

And, of course, physics is the means by which we use these tools. Personally, I do a lot of structural analysis, which can be broken up into pieces (everything is a spring) and turned into big matrix equations; hence why linear algebra is so cool.

@pyro1245: There is a thread somewhere here about ''if you go could back in time what would you do?''. I'd go see mama Gauss and tell her not to get pregnant because she would spawn a demon child.

Calculus is my jam though.

Hmm but come to think about it, I'd also go pay a visit to mama Riemann. *cracks knuckles*.

Btw don't tell me there is linear algebra in mechanics of materials??? I'm currently doing that course. Only algebra I'm seeing in class notes, is 3x3 tensor matrices for individual sections on a structure, which is fine and intuitive. If it goes beyond that forget it I quit lol.

@osan0: From what I've heard, modern computer science is pretty much pure linear algebra.

I will say a prayer for you.

Yeah, it's an unfortunate barrier to appreciating a larger world.

Haha. You can use linear algebra in mechanics of materials, but you only have a few eqs so it's easy enough to solve without.

Once you get to the structural analysis class (read: matrix analysis of structures) then you need it because each 'node' with have up to 6 DOFs and the result is a loooot of little spring eqs that need to be put into a matrix and solved that way.

It's easier than it sounds tho - a very simple matrix operation. Building the matrix is the hard part. Then you will learn how to use software anyway.

I'm OK with it as long as it has practical use.

When you start getting into imaginary numbers and crap like that, you lost me.

I'll do dimensional analysis all day (part of my job, actually). You want me to find out how much steam I need at such-and-such degrees to heat so much water from y degrees to z degrees? Great.

Just don't ask me why 0 does or doesn't exist or how 1.9+1.9 actually really does = 4

@mrbojangles25: Ok how much do you need to heat water from 125 degrees C to 492 kelvin at a pressure of 476.16 kPa?

Disclaimer: I can't confirm the answer because I just started thermo tables this week :x

@pyro1245: Thanks for the explanation. I think that what matter is that I find everything about physics very captivating so I'll put in the work to figure it all out.

Eh that shouldn't be to hard to calculate. Does pressure change the amount of energy needed?

From memory it is something like 4.18 joules per degree C per gram of water. Maybe add in a step for going form liquid to gas form, and continue with whatever heat capacity there is for steam.

If the students have the right resources the books themselves should be able to tell students all they need to know despite lack of decent teacher. I always ignored teacher and just followed examples in the books, math books are like chapter 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, etc. So maybe for a day the teacher says do chapter 3.4 and 3.5 and gives a set of questions to answer. Each chapter subsection will have Ike 3 different examples of how to solve problems of a certain type, and homework reinforces it, simple. I mostly just ignored teacher lectures if I had next days homework and just worked on it during class so I would have no homework.

But... not all students have access to decent books. Some college teachers print their own course packets that are just bad. Even elementary and middle school school kids get lowest bidder packets that are so awful I don't know how they ever got recommended for use.

@horgen: Pressure changes the boiling point of water. But yes it's probably very easy to calculate with the right formulas. Just plug in 2 or 3 values and the problem solves itself.

@lamprey263: I agree, the school books system is broken. College books over here cost about 120-150$ on average. Per class. That's 900+Tx twice a year, just for the books. Many parents can't afford paying that for their kids, on top of tuition fees. It's not right.

@Keaze_: Yeah I know it changes the boiling point of water. Problem for some of the people who have travelled far up in the atmosphere with balloons is that they need pressurised suits, as the boiling point is lower than your body temperature.

Converting between fahrenheit and celcius is easy, though annoying step. :P

I had to retake a class in college. Things aren't at US level of horrible here, but going from a 90$ book that covered 3 classes I had to take to a 190$ that I think only covered one class... Damn that made me furious.

I recommend in looking into if it's worth buying textbooks new. Won't go into too much as I don't want to get in trouble. I did the mistake in my first year of buying all my books new. Lecturers and professors even encouraged to acquire them by other means. It's a scam and waste of money. At least do your research and determine if it's something you'd use in another class or after you graduate and use it in the workforce.

It might be kind of an odd reason but I've been buying the books new to keep them neat to conserve them as some kind of memento of this period of life. After 2 and a half years, and 3 more to go, the mementos are starting to get a little costy and I sure ain't as rich as I used to be, so I will probably start looking at ways to get cheaper ones or alternative options to learn certain topics. Plus the further you get, the less books are actually available for classes. I'm starting to have classes for which books just don't exist because there is not enough people to sell them to, so all you have are notes from teachers. There is also the internet but even then the amount of content diminishes each semester.

You're also right in saying that you don't really use a book twice. The only book I used twice is multivariable calculus.

Not so odd. Sounds like a hobby and whatever floats your boat. My suggestion was more towards struggling students. Been there and all that. If me and my wife had kept all our books we'd have quite the collection. We talked about it but we both felt the same towards the practicality of having stuff we'd never read again just taking space. There were several courses we'd also like to forget entirely. It's a shame how the industry is towards tertiary textbooks. The online versions suck. Can't use ctrl+f function in a lot of them, and only access for a year. I get the whole anti-piracy thing but jeez.

I'm good at teaching 4th grade math 😂

Courses you would like to forget, yea, sure thing. I threw all my bio material in the recycling (about 300 pages of printed stuff and notes that I took) because it was a mandatory class and I never want to hear about bio again in my life (I understand many people like it, but it's not for me).

A year? They lowered it to 4 months. The pages also have to be flipped one by one (site has to load each time).

They don't include answers to problems anymore. My 865 pages thermo book only has answers to one in five problems. You have to calculate the total in or out energy of a system and you can't even know if you have the right answer! What's the point? You might be doing it all wrong.

Math book, only odd numbered problems have answers, and any problem that says ''prove that the function.......'' or ''show that if....'', they literally write in the answer section: ''the demonstration is left to the student''. Like really? Proofs are exactly what you need to learn in that class!

Anyway I could rant about this for hours.

the foundation of machine learning is basically calculus and linear algrebra

Do you still use cheques?

Very seldomly, but yes.

This is why I pirate my books.

Usually the next edition has very minor changes. Some newly added discovery is added. Some new pictures. Or maybe the problems are rearranged differently.

Hmm I actually never thought about trying to find them in english. Worth a shot.

I have a learning disability and have been terrible with most things math related for my entire life. It's something I would like to try again at some point though. Relearn in a sense. I had a pretty bad attention span as a kid so maybe that was part of the problem.

I think it is very useful not just for it's applications but also for learning to think logically. Students these days do not have a very well rounded education. Too much focus on specialization at the beginning.