Fun with Mathematics

[enitharmon]

I found this book

in the local library a couple of weeks ago and I took it home to read, largely because mathematics has been problematical for me all my life.

The book was fascinating, but it was also very frustrating. For one thing, while I don't doubt that Marcus du Sautoy is a very talented mathematician, he isn't much cop as a writer. He repeats himself endlessly and he doesn't pick up a metaphor without flogging it to death. For another thing, it was full of anecdote and name-dropping, but there didn't seem to be an awful lot of actual maths in it.

When I was in my last year at Junior School - what would now be called Year 6 - we had a test every Friday morning. Ten arithmetic problems, and if you got all ten right you got a star. I never got a single star all year. I got a 9 once, but only once I think.

In secondary school I floundered away at the back of the class, struggling where everybody else seemed to take it in their stride and becoming more and more convinced that I was retarded in this field. (There were some things that bowled me over, though, like matrices. For ages after I'd learned the trick for solving simultaneous linear equations by matrices I wouldn't do it any other way, but then matrices disappeared below the horizon after a brief taster in the third year, not to resurface until I was at Uni.) Somehow, however, I found myself doing maths for A-level (only because school and parents wanted me to do physics). At the start I made up my mind to ask when I was struggling. I remember Mrs Lacey's response when I first made up my mind to ask her to go through something again. She said "Everybody else understands it. I'm not going to waste the class's time going over it agaion just for you." So I never asked again.

The worst of it was anything that began "prove that..." or "show that..." I'd end up with pages and pages of scribble, each step in the reasoning perfectly reasonable yet never getting remotely close to the Quod that was to be Demonstrandum.

I got to uni to do physics, and then I was completely at sea. I could feel the contempt of my contemporaries who could it partial differential equations for breakfast and fled for the cover of the student newspaper office, where I spent most of my time. I passed my degree - just about - but I suspect only because of the essay question on every paper.

Anyway, spurred on by Dr de Sautoy, I bought a book of A-level Pure Maths (I always did better at Pure than Applied - I got 4% in my Applied Maths mock A-level paper!) and began to work through iot, systematically. I found two interesting things.

One: That I could do a lot of eat, even work out the trigonometric proofs, handle vectors, and my O-level nemesis, algebraic long division.

Two: That there's a lot of baggage in there, much of it associated with vector analysis. There's been no vector analysis in my Cambridge A-Level syllabus (I did combines, it was in the Separate Subjects but I wasn't clever enough for that)

I'd like to have ago, now, at understanding quantum mechanics. I can cope with the philosophy underlying it, but the maths has always seemed way beyong my read. But is it still possible?

Would anybody care to comment?

Comments

[elhamisabel.livejournal.com]

I liked math until I arrived at 7th grade when I got a stupid math teacher (stupid as in I-only-care-for-those-of-you-who-are-good-at-maths-all-the-others-have-to-make-sure-to-keep-up)
Afterwards math stopped to be logical and hence, interesting to me.
I like the way you've still not given up trying to understand it. It's a laudable character trait. I'd have given up trying to understand it years ago. In fact, I have (though I keep telling myself that one day I'll have a proper look into it but who am I kidding?!).

[sunneschii.livejournal.com]

I think your relationship with maths is really interesting!

I love maths, although I'm not really that good at it. I mean, I can't really integrate anything. But I mostly know what I could do to solve a problem.
Although I have some problems with the style analysis is thaught at the moment.

I haven't known that you had studied physics.. that's even more cool!

[beebarf.livejournal.com]

Pure maths is a lot of following rules and once you know how the rules work, it's pretty easy to solve almost everything :o) And I agree with you about matrices for solving quadratics - they are such an elegant way of getting to the solution. Mind you I was the only one in my O Level Maths group to think so - even the guy who later went on to do a maths degree didn't really get them! I seem to remember vector operations can be expressed in matrix form, but don't quote me on that - I did A Level Maths (Pure and Applied) as separate subjects nearly 20 years ago! From getting an unclassified mark in my mocks in the January, I got B grades in the actual papers. There were a lot of tears of frustration in my classes in those years, but it was worth it when the Head of Maths saw me on results day - he'd a huge grin on his face, showed me the slip, then said "How the f*ck did you manage that?" - and added that he was proud of me! So it is possible to have the brain explosion that clears the fog...

And talking of fog - quantum mechanics. If you really, really want to go there, take it from a scarred survivor of a year of classes in the subject at University (where I was studying Materials Science and Metallurgy because I thought it would be easier than Physics - ha!) - prepare yourself for an interesting experience. It wasn't really the maths that was tough, it was understanding the concepts behind it. A grasp of probability theory might also help... I think. I've blocked the experience from my long term memory, although allegedly, it was one of the papers I passed when I failed my second year.

I'm sure someone with more knowledge will be along shortly to expound better :o)

[beebarf.livejournal.com]

And I meant to say - I hate teachers like the one you had! I was blessed by some of the best people all the way through my school days - University was a different matter!

I vividly remember Danny Holden, my Applied teacher, taking his tie off, attached his hole punch, and whirling it around in explanation because I was struggling with picturing the forces with were at work when things moved in a circle...

(I still didn't really get it, but I knew enough to gain a little credit in the exam. My forte was probability and statistics. My tree diagrams were legendary! )

[swanofkennet.livejournal.com]

One thing I mean to meantion, but didn't, is that when I went to look for books about maths I found a lot of books of the 'You too can understand maths' variety, which all seem at a very basic level, and text books. Mostly school text books, almost nothing on University-level maths.

It was very frustrating.

[beebarf.livejournal.com]

If you haven't already read them, then "In Search of Schrodinger's Cat" John Gribbin) and "Fermat's Last Theorom" (Simon Singh) are quite readable introductions to some arcane theories. I've got another maths book here called "Why Do Busses Come in Threes" but I haven't read that yet - I'll move it up Mount TBR and review it for you :o)

One of the reasons I did science at School/Uni was that I knew I could pick up arts/humanities much more easily when I was older, whereas there is a real dearth of stuff regarding maths and science for the returning learner/enthusiastic amateur. I've not seen anything since to disprove my adolescent theory :o/

[loopy1.livejournal.com]

I did maths through the Open University - they're very good, starting with a course that takes you through O-level GCSE type stuff, then further up. You can start at whatever level you fancy.

I found the OU materials very easy to use, and there's always a tutor available to contact if you need further help.

I'd love to get to teach maths one day.