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I need a good math book
Quid
The Fifth HorsemanRegistered User regular
The Fifth HorsemanRegistered User regular
It's becoming more and more likely that whatever I get my bachelor's in, calculus is going to be involved at some point. Which means given my complete ineptitude at math I need to start prepping now in hopes of either CLEPing it before college or at least being ready to take it. The nature of my job lets me have a good amount of study time so I'd like to have a book I could go over during those periods. And as much as I'd like to jump straight in to calculus, one that covered the basics of algebra and geometry would probably be necessary since I barely passed that CLEP.
So, recommend away. For what it's worth I have access to UH's bookstore for one more week in addition to the various stores on my island.
So, recommend away. For what it's worth I have access to UH's bookstore for one more week in addition to the various stores on my island.
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As far as one that covers algebra, trig and calc ... I honestly have no idea. The calc book I used was Calculus - James Stewart which was solidly passable (covers through approx calc 2 or 3). For the other stuff, if I find my precalc book I'll toss the name up here, but if I can't then maybe just being directed at pre-calc books will help.
edit: Another option: if you had one, could you use a netbook at work? If you can, can you use audio on it (with headphones maybe)? If so, I'm actually going to suggest a netbook and downloading khan academy (or just queuing up a bunch of lectures) instead of a pair of books (cost will be about the same)
it is fantastic and covers everything up to calculus three
you should know that you can't teach yourself calc one but by the end of calc II you can teach yourself the rest
it is weird
(HTML sections here: http://www.math.wisc.edu/~keisler/calc.html)
It's a slightly different approach - I like Stewart a lot, but I also read this book for funsies and thought it was pretty good, especially for the price.
Just print it out and you are set!
You can also buy it.
It's explicitly designed for self-study, starts from nothing, and has a ton of resources attached for testing and checking progress. Everything's broken down into short sections that build to full-on calculus. It also has some self-assessment stuff in the beginning to help you decide where to jump in if you already have some maths knowledge.
I don't think it gets quite as advanced as the Stewart book, Stroud kind of tops out at Laplace transforms. There is another text that follows it, though.
That book looks like it could be a very useful independent study aid, japan.
It has been. I'm not so much learning from scratch as re-learning because I'm going to jump back in to final year degree level study having put it on hold about six years ago, but I basically needed to go from zero to calculus independently and that's exactly what it was useful for.
The problem with Khan (btw, I use his site all the time) is that there isn't much structure and there are huge holes in his "lesson plans". I have nothing but love for him; but it's not a substitute for formal math education. It's more of supplementary material. Also he mostly focuses on very basic/elementary maths. For example, in the exercise applet there are only 1 or 2 problems that are calculus (and even then, just very basic intro type of questions). For trig, there is maybe a half dozen if you are lucky. Anything beyond that (which is really were college math starts) isn't touched in any exercises.
In terms of books; I would suggest schaum outlines. They are maybe $10 or $15 bucks.
Cheaper if you buy used or any and all libraries will have a copy.
It's very dry; but they are great resources. They are outlines as the name implies
Working though them till you get stuck and find external resources to teach that topic (see below).
I promise you, if you can work though a schaum outline on a topic and know everything in that, you will be light years ahead of any formal class on the topic.
For other books, find whatever is a) cheap and b) college level. There is a ton of "outdated" editions on Amazon for super cheap. Math hasn't changed that much. It's not like there have been any major break thoughts in calculus in the last 10 years' so find some used book for $1.02 or whatever and use that to help with a schaum outline.
Or libraries.
This seems like it might be exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks a lot. Hope to get it in time.
Not to turn this into a topic about KhanAcademy - but not sure what site you are looking on; he has everything from basic math to Linear Algebra/Diff EQ. The calculus section covers topics one would find all the way up to Calc 3 (Green's Thm is even up there). It is certainly not meant to be the sole tool a person uses for study - nor was it ever intended to be such.
Yep; in the videos he goes over them. But there is no problems or exercises [yet]. I think it's hard to learn without those Also, like I said; it's a great supplementary material, but think it would be difficult to learn just from the videos as he tends to jump around and sometimes leaves holes in topics.
I was able to do it to CLEP college math, and that was before I spent hours shut in a room with little to do for months at a time. I know this will be significantly harder but boredom gets me to study all sorts of things I don't like.
I've always found it to be much easier to read and learn from than Stewart.
Having re-read the OP I'd think you need to jump back in with a Precalculus book rather than going straight to Calc I material. You're more likely to sink than swim without a solid knowledge of Algebra basics. If you don't know exponent rules, inverses, function compositions, and exponentials/logs try as you might the Calc I stuff just isn't going to make a whole heck of a lot of sense.
Of the modern books Blitzer is the lowest level precalculus, Stewart is the hardest. I like Dulgoposki (sp?) as well since its got a better description of matrices and trigonometry.
Having taken college calc based on the Stewart book, I agree. Half the time the explanations and proofs made no sense until the teacher stepped through them for us.
It's good as a reference book and has lots of problems to test your understanding, but the idea of using it to learn independently strikes me as an exercise in futility unless you're exceptional.
The 2012 issue of Fornax. | Steam and Origin: Espressosaurus
Yes, this one (in fact, I think I recommended it to you). It's the best maths book I've come across in my travels.
If you get through that one and the Pink "Advanced" one that follows it, then get a copy of Boas. It's written in an odd style, but it's packed with super useful stuff (it's mainly a maths for physics book though).
Math for physics is the best kind of book.
I should probably buy a copy
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