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boothbyHNSource author
Lessons learnedExperience excerpt · English

Around that time, I went from noodling around with programming, to taking it seriously

… Around that time, I went from noodling around with programming, to taking it seriously. I learned a bunch of programming languages, and landed a web development job straight out of school. I wasn't just done with math, I was done with school, too! After a few years of that, I got bored with web dev, and decided I'd rather try my hand at engineering of some sort. I enrolled in community college, and quickly discovered that all of the engineering courses had... math prerequisites. So I bit the bullet, and for the first time, applied myself . Turns out that I wasn't intrinsically bad at math; I just hadn't been sufficiently motivated! I was paying my own way, so I ended up taking a job in the tutoring center. As I transferred to university, I found myself taking more and more of these math "prerequisites" and not following through on the engineering courses. I matriculated as a math major, and today I've got a PhD in math. In my mid-20s, I didn't even believe that I could be Math A person. But I got good at that stuff, for the sake of engineering! …

Original discussionI rewired my brain to become fluent in math (2014)199 source comments · at import
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the__alchemistHN

To me, it seems that there are two general categories of things referred to as "math": A: the one used in this article: What people generally refer to as math. What's used by engineers, (most) scientists, etc. B: The one used by math majors and mathematicians. This type is abstract, contains things domains that end in "theory". My question: Do you think an approach like in the article is possible to learn Math B? I have tried several times, unsuccessfully. I'm proficient in most domains of Math A. (Differential equations, linear algebra etc, symbol manipulation, geometry, and how tho apply them to practical problems). Math B seems, in contrast, beyond me. There is a programming analogy: Math B is like Haskell, or pure functional programming, which also is as ungraspable to me. I am wondering if maybe this is partially genetic, partially something you have to learn at an early age. Or may…

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gosub100HN

> So I bit the bullet, and for the first time, applied myself This is what I would tell people, but just use a weight lifting analogy. If you're out of shape, of course you will struggle to do any sort of exercises. But if you keep working at it in a disciplined way, while being kind to yourself and praising your progress, eventually you can get good at it. Calculus is a tiny bit of new material plus a shit ton of rote algebra. Even undergrad prob and stat was 80% algebraic manipulation.

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kianHN

I have also found that programming is the gateway drug to Math B. Thanks to Functional Programming and Type Theory I eventually found may way into Abstract Algebra, Topology, and Category Theory... Wish I had time to go back and study these with a mentor, though!

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