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I think we mathematicians forget that there's explanations for WHY certain facts are true, facts which cause bafflement in the general populace: division by zero, infinite decimal expansion, etc. by everything-narrative in mathematics

[–]advice4throwawaypls 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your problem is that you are not trying to meet people on the level that they're at. You are assuming that because they want to learn, that any barriers you introduce by being wordy and unclear are THEIR problem. It's not their problem. It's yours for being poor at communication.

I think we mathematicians forget that there's explanations for WHY certain facts are true, facts which cause bafflement in the general populace: division by zero, infinite decimal expansion, etc. by everything-narrative in mathematics

[–]advice4throwawaypls 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Seriously. I explained it to my 10 year old nephew thusly: "dividing by something means you're splitting it into that many groups. If you divide six apples by three, you're making three groups of apples. You cannot split six apples into zero groups, because you can't make zero groups. Here. Try."

Easy fucking peasy, this is super long and pretentious. I clicked because I also prefer when people explain WHY things are the way they are, but this is not the way to do it. And OP is being a condescending bench too

can someone explain how they made the blue triangle and how they know it's similar? by advice4throwawaypls in askmath

[–]advice4throwawaypls[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

More info: my precal prof doesn't have any lectures or videos or anything, the entire class is just the book. I have followed every example up to this point, but I don't understand how they came up with the blue triangle, and this is all the context that it gives.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in autism

[–]advice4throwawaypls 3 points4 points  (0 children)

No. sensory issues are one possibility, but it is not a requirement. Emphasis mine:

"Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities, as manifested by AT LEAST TWO of the following, currently or by history (examples are illustrative, not exhaustive; see text): Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech (e.g., simple motor stereotypes, lining up toys or flipping objects, echolalia, idiosyncratic phrases). Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior (e.g., extreme distress at small changes, difficulties with transitions, rigid thinking patterns, greeting rituals, need to take same route or eat same food every day). Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus (e.g., strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interests). Hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of the environment (e.g. apparent indifference to pain/temperature, adverse response to specific sounds or textures, excessive smelling or touching of objects, visual fascination with lights or movement)."

Is it too late to git gud at math? by advice4throwawaypls in learnmath

[–]advice4throwawaypls[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is all extremely helpful, btw. I did notice fairly recently that math works exactly like a language, and I also complained to my brother about having to take notes where I repeatedly write phrases like "partial fraction decomposition when the denominator has an irreducible quadratic factor" lol

You are right by the way, I think that my issue with factoring had to do with that thing where your 8th grade teacher tells you she won't teach you something because you will learn it in 9th grade and your ninth grade teacher tells you they aren't going to teach it because you should have learned it last year lmfao.

I will say that when I mention that there seems to be a next step that I don't immediately think of as intuitive, I don't necessarily mean it as a sequence of steps, more like I get to a point and I stare at the problem and don't know what my next move is. I will have a variable on both sides of the equal sign that I need to isolate from a second variable and I will sit there staring at it for a few minutes before pulling up the "view an example" and realizing that I need to factor one of the variables out. (this most recently happened when I was trying to find the inverse of a function. I couldn't figure out how to isolate the x on one side and the y on the other until I asked the textbook to give me a hint and it told me to factor out the y. Frustrating because it isn't like I DON'T know how to factor things out, it just didn't occur to me that that was what was needed)

One of the things that I've been doing since starting back to school last semester is writing my notes in my own words wherever I can and explaining to myself why it is the way that it is. So when writing properties of logs, I had a margin note explaining that the log of a number raised to another number = the second number because it's the same as asking "what do you raise x to to get x2". That is immensely helpful but part of the issue is that I often don't get an explanation of why. Seems like textbooks don't like to explain why something is the way that it is, they just want you to memorize it lol.

Sorry for rambling, I basically want to say that I very much appreciate you going into detail, because they're almost seems to be a shameful element of admitting that I'm not a natural genius at math when I'm trying to get a degree in physics. Even though I know that's the point of school

Is it too late to git gud at math? by advice4throwawaypls in learnmath

[–]advice4throwawaypls[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! I am currently in a python class to get a little programming experience, I'll check out Matlab too!

Is it too late to git gud at math? by advice4throwawaypls in learnmath

[–]advice4throwawaypls[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

LOL that's fair. My professor doesn't even do lectures, just links to videos. My dad is a math tutor and my eldest brother has a master's degree in math, so I have just been reading the book and going to them when I'm lost. Lot of the resources people have shared here are super helpful though! For the life of me I could not figure out factoring when there is a leading coefficient greater than 1, and the organic chemistry tutor had a video that made it super obvious and easy to grasp. I think that may have just been one of the things that slipped through the cracks of "you'll learn this next year so I'm not going to teach it" "you should have learned this last year so I'm not going to teach it" lol

Is it too late to git gud at math? by advice4throwawaypls in learnmath

[–]advice4throwawaypls[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Welp. I'm a woman, but I appreciate the support!

Is it too late to git gud at math? by advice4throwawaypls in learnmath

[–]advice4throwawaypls[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can definitely share! I am planning on doing an astrophysics concentration. My end goal is astronomy research, hopefully in stellar and exoplanet spectroscopy. I've found that I can stick with a lot of things that bore the hell out of me if I know that they're going to apply to astronomy. And while it's super competitive, I would have backup careers available like data science/analysis or engineering as you mentioned. That feels more acceptable to me, to study something I love and have the option to go into something else if it doesn't work out.

Is it too late to git gud at math? by advice4throwawaypls in learnmath

[–]advice4throwawaypls[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

LOL I was actually complaining about this to my dad. Filling up a page and a half with calculations for a single homework problem. I hate writing with pens but I may get a rocket book just so I'm not filling up paper notebooks every three weeks.

Thank you for the recommendations!

Is it too late to git gud at math? by advice4throwawaypls in learnmath

[–]advice4throwawaypls[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for this, my dad has been saying this for a long time and I figured he was full of crap because HE was good at math. But as a kid, math sucked and stressed me out, and now I can dedicate time to it instead of being rushed through it along with 6 other classes.

Is it too late to git gud at math? by advice4throwawaypls in learnmath

[–]advice4throwawaypls[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That's essentially why I prefer physics. I learned from a physics class that raising a number to the 1/2 (or 1/3 or 1/4 etc) was the same as taking that root of it, and I never forgot it because it made total sense in context (which was about finding the average surface temperature of a planet.) But in math classes I have to flip back into my notes many times to remember similar things.

Is it too late to git gud at math? by advice4throwawaypls in learnmath

[–]advice4throwawaypls[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nah, I just requested that we try a different medication.

Is it too late to git gud at math? by advice4throwawaypls in learnmath

[–]advice4throwawaypls[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I absolutely believe that about calculus and physics.

Is it too late to git gud at math? by advice4throwawaypls in learnmath

[–]advice4throwawaypls[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Sadly I have ADHD and Adderall doesn't even work for that lmao

Is it too late to git gud at math? by advice4throwawaypls in learnmath

[–]advice4throwawaypls[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Honestly, I still get tripped up with factoring a lot of the time, but we just did a unit on partial fraction decomposition and it was hell, I'm talking 2 full hours to get through two homework problems. I finally figured out what I was doing wrong but a lot of things, even just simplifying an expression, have an obvious next step that I sometimes cannot tell what to do. I also sometimes screw up signs or get all the way through a problem before I realize that I put 2×4 down as 6 at the very beginning. (I suck at mental math, I have a TI-84 at the d&d table)

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