Becoming less of a maths dunce

[touchingcloth]

How does an adult learn not be stupid at maths?

I have a GCSE in maths, computer science and physics A Levels and a computer science degree so I'm not the worst at maths, but anything higher than intermediate paper GCSE goes a bit over my head - at university we did a maths module in the first year, for instance, and I skipped the stats elements entirely in favour of the logic ones. I can use Excel and analysis software, but first principles? Forget about it.

Is there a solution other than "just take a higher GCSE maths paper, dullard"?

[Underturd]

Fuck it some people just don't like stats. If you don't need it for anything more than personal satisfaction then just go and live in a cave with a family of wombats or something, fulfilment comes in all shapes and sizes.

[Dr M1nx PhD]

I have this book, and find it really useful. Written in 1967, but very readable and he makes maths understandable for arts and humanities types like me.

[pancreas]

I think I just found a counterexample to a theorem I've been trying to prove for two years so if you get a good answer to this question I'm all ears.

[flotemysost]

Why bother when you can just bask in the smug satisfaction of remembering when your maths teachers used to go "you won't have a calculator with you all the time when you grow up, you know!".

(certified hopeless maths dunce here, just about scraped a GCSE on a resit - but can appreciate the drive to get better at it, even if it's not one I'll ever be pursuing myself as far as I can help it. I've seen a few books aimed at demystifying maths for parents who are worried about helping out kids with their homework - possibly not the angle you're after, but I'm sure there must be swathes of "maths for dummies"-type resources out there)

[idunnosomename]

if you have a computer, if you press the search button on the taskbar and type "calculator" theres a program that does it all for you. hope this helps

[touchingcloth]

Fuck it some people just don't like stats. If you don't need it for anything more than personal satisfaction then just go and live in a cave with a family of wombats or something, fulfilment comes in all shapes and sizes.

I need it for work, it turns out. "Analyse this thing" turned into "analyse these two things" turned into "compare these two things" turned into "prove I should care".

I can do it all, just not say why I'm doing it, so part of it is for personal satisfaction I guess.

[Underturd]

Is this a just learn to love it kind of thing then? Wombats would probably help with that too.

[touchingcloth]

Is this a just learn to love it kind of thing then? Wombats would probably help with that too.

Partially. A Level physics was the first time I noticed that I was missing something compared to classmates, every single one of whom had taken higher maths GCSE and was taking a maths A Level. They could all rearrange formulae with ease while I struggled, so I missed something or other between the ages of ~14 and ~17.

[Underturd]

That really does suck.

_{So could the wombats}

[Zetetic]

Did extreme maths at secondary school, mostly by copying other people's homework. Stopped cheating for a bit and got put in the incompetent second set for a bit before being returned and had to go back to cheating.

Did stats stuff as part of a Psychology degree at supposedly one of the best and experiment-focused departments in the UK and it was dreadful. Taught you how to read SPSS output and fuck all else.

Did formal logic which bled into maths without numbers stuff. Kind of fun in a game sort of way but no use for statistics.

Finally started thinking about what the point of statistics was in my first job because of having to argue the toss about approaches effectively based around prediction intervals and estimated summary statistics (control charts) with people who'd been brought up on p-values (much as in my degree).

Bit embarrassed to admit it, but this actually made me think properly about the point of "significance testing" statistics and stuff of that ilk:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.140216
about a decade later than I should've got a grip on it, and how it's often actually quite inappropriate.

I don't really care about the nuts and bolts for the most part. (Possibly to my detriment.)

[extraordinary walnuts]

Honestly ChatGPT is great for this kind of thing. Have it explain fundamentals over and over again from different angles until you get it. Have it write some code for you to illustrate concepts. Have it set challenges for you.

I always go to YouTube whenever I want to learn something and I can't remember the last time it failed me. Whatever it is, there's some motherfucker on YouTube who wants to break it down for you. Audition a few channels til you find one that clicks!

[Zetetic]

I need it for work, it turns out. "Analyse this thing" turned into "analyse these two things" turned into "compare these two things" turned into "prove I should care".

And is it the case that maths is likely to make anyone care?

[touchingcloth]

Did formal logic which bled into maths without numbers stuff. Kind of fun in a game sort of way but no use for statistics.

I loved formal logic, but have ever found a real world use for it.

Bit embarrassed to admit it, but this actually made me think properly about the point of "significance testing" statistics and stuff of that ilk:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.140216
about a decade later than I should've got a grip on it, and how it's often actually quite inappropriate.

You might appreciate:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01973533.2015.1012991

I don't really care about the nuts and bolts for the most part. (Possibly to my detriment.)

And is it the case that maths is likely to make anyone care?

It feels like one day someone is going to say "explain these nuts and bolts to me", and the whole edifice of my competence will come tumbling down.

[popcorn]

I have this book, and find it really useful. Written in 1967

Doesn't that mean it's missing some of the latest maths?

[thenoise]

The 'math' section at Khan Academy is good. Up to undergrad level, it was useful revision for me when I went back to uni four years ago.

[Mr Vegetables]

I think stats is honestly really hard to grasp— it's worth saying that a lot of standard statistical ideas seemed to ages to be discovered; like the normal distribution is formalised 150 years after Newton. There's probably a distinction between understanding them and being able to do all the maths around them, but I still struggle greatly to do either.

I spend a lot of time staring at the central limit theorem, thinking "I don't understand this central limit theorem." But I am at the point of trying to factor that sort of concept into how I think about the world? It's not going very well

[touchingcloth]

I think stats is honestly really hard to grasp— it's worth saying that a lot of standard statistical ideas seemed to ages to be discovered; like the normal distribution is formalised 150 years after Newton. There's probably a distinction between understanding them and being able to do all the maths around them, but I still struggle greatly to do either.

I spend a lot of time staring at the central limit theorem, thinking "I don't understand this central limit theorem." But I am at the point of trying to factor that sort of concept into how I think about the world? It's not going very well

Weirdly, the gist of the normal distribution makes intuitive sense to me - measure enough people's heights, and similar numbers of them will be above and below the mean - and so my understanding of the central limit theorem also makes sense - measure a single person's height enough times, and similar numbers of your measurements will be above and below their actual height.

Gauss's definition of the distribution includes pi as part of it, and when I try and figure out why I'm right back to realising what a dunce I am.

[TrenterPercenter]

Honestly ChatGPT is great for this kind of thing. Have it explain fundamentals over and over again from different angles until you get it. Have it write some code for you to illustrate concepts. Have it set challenges for you.

This.  I actually wrote a post on this for the AI thread but I didn't post it.  I've worked with stats for 14 years in my work and multiple times I've had to work with statisticians who, like a lot of men with maths, love demonstrating how good at maths they are too you at the cost you understanding what is actually going on (I've said it before big elitist problems in the maths world and it is littered with poor teachers of it - probably a prime candidate for AI replacing imo)

Use ChatGPT to get down to the fundamentals and create understanding on your level, there is so much more to research than maths, that being said understanding at least the basics helps make you a better researcher but most of us actually doing applied work do not have the luxury of studying maths all day so tend to just learn more advanced stuff as and when required (and then forget again afterwards).

[Zero Gravitas]

Get stuck in lad: https://github.com/rangaeeeee/books-mir-mathematics/blob/master/Vygodsky-Mathematical-Handbook-B0018XY1MG.pdf

[Dex Sawash]

I thought I was good at mathematic until I sat my placement exam for high school equivalence certificate course to rectify my failure to graduate. Was let down by inability to multiply or divide fractions which was a ludicrously large portion of the test but I better not guess how much fractionally. Was going to be forced to do several years worth of mathematic classwork so I fucked off the whole thing and remain ungraduated

[touchingcloth]

Maybe the answer is just "it's hard" and that's fine.

I started on this spiral largely because we can't use Python widely at work, and so I've been looking at ways to tell non-Python users how calculate p-values in other tools, and it mostly comes down to "run these thirty five largely manual steps" or "download this plugin (which is coded in Python, btw)".

I don't work in academia and my assumption going into this was that academics are all calculating their deviations and rejecting their hypotheses from first principles, but perhaps this assumption is my error and they're using as many plugins as the rest of us.

[touchingcloth]

I was watching an episode of For All Mankind recently where someone said "hmm, well it's not a standard Gaussian elimination" and I thought "Gauss? I know him. This elimination business would be fun to learn more about".

It wasn't fun, and I didn't learn.

[TrenterPercenter]

I don't work in academia and my assumption going into this was that academics are all calculating their deviations and rejecting their hypotheses from first principles, but perhaps this assumption is my error and they're using as many plugins as the rest of us.

Correct.

We don't all have giant chalk boards either fwiw. 

[touchingcloth]

Correct.

We don't all have giant chalk boards either fwiw. 

Obviously. You write with grease pencils on windows, I'm not a complete dolt.

[touchingcloth]

Apparently this is actual maths



But it's not maths, is it? It's art. Bad art.

"Hunting? What are you doing doodling? Get back to work, these toilets won't descale themselves."

"I am working."

[KennyMonster]

I'm sick and tired of all these Maths ones coming over ere and messing with our traditional values.

The is England and we celebrate Christmas, not your "Bodmas" !!!!

[touchingcloth]

I like to follow SAMDOB. I reckon as long as you do the B, the O, the M, the A, the S and the D, the order of them is neither here nor there.

[Underturd]

I prefer to follow PEBCAK, it hasn't let me down yet.

[Mr Vegetables]

Apparently loads of maths people are really bad at arithmetic and calculating things, it just stops being about that for a lot of people and becomes about theoretical doughnuts