Sites for learning Maths?

monquixote

I'd like to get better at maths. 

I was always quite good at maths until I took it at A-level and had an awful NQT who didn't seem to know basic maths and would cry and walk out when unable to ask students questions. My response to this was to drop the subject which I've always regretted as if it was now I'd have found some other way of getting through it. 

Given that I'm a software developer having a grasp of some more advanced maths would be really helpful to my work and I think I've always had a bit of a chip on my shoulder about giving up.

So what resources would anyone recommend for learning maths at A-level/first year undergrad level?

I'm aware of things like Khan Academy, Udemy, Coursera etc, but I haven't tried any of them. 

mynamesnotbob

Do you know what you want to learn? Or just be better? If you want to get your A in A level you feel you deserve, go and do it. Sign up for the exam, get a study book and go for it. You will soon find out your weaker areas, and as soon as you've identified them you can find out how to fix them.

These days all you need to do is define the problem - there are so many resources out there once you know what you are trying to fix, the hard bit it getting that first step. Once you have the grounding you will then probably know the areas that interest you after that and you can go on to do further study.

Vaiai

Youtube has some great stuff - find one that is at your level or whose presentation you like and go with that. Not sure what sites to recommend as I only do the stuff with the kids but they are 10 + 12 - I can see me needing to go back and learn more to help them as the years go on tho

tone1

I realise it's not for your level but 'Mathantics' on YouTube is great for School age Maths...

fields5069

I hated undergrad maths, I went to a Uni where I had to do 3 subjects in the first year before specialising. A-level was all numbers and sums and equations and interesting things, while undergrad consisted of a bloke talking at me for hour after hour, and having 4 million lemmas to learn. For all n, where 1<=n<x, it can be shown that....zzzzzzzzzzzz.

monquixote

Nothing specific. 

I'm at the level where I "Don't know what I don't know" if you see what I mean. 

I'm not sure if I'd like to take an A-Level paper just to prove a point. or just feeling confident with the subject would be enough.

Axe_meister

What problems do you need to solve as part of your job. That will at least point you into the maths direction.
I.e. if you are doing business related stuff then statistics is probably the direction you should explore.
Engineering then calculus and geometry are where it is at, if anything to do with fluid-dynamics then matrix calculations are key, especially if you move onto finite element/volume analysis 
Scientific again calculus is the starting point.
Control systems: Calculus and furrier transforms.
 

Axe_meister

24 years after Graduating from Aeronautical engineering I still have nightmares about the maths. I dream that my degree will be taken away unless I sit  the maths exam again. I spent my three years, gigging/drinking/shagging.

FazTheWookie

I, and almost every other science/engineering student I knew at Uni, discovered the value of the book "Engineering Mathematics" by Ken Stroud. It was never on the reading list, but was a widely recommended and adopted solution to passing maths courses!

BigMonka

The free online courses from MIT are supposed to be good: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/

thermionic

fields5069 said:

I hated undergrad maths, I went to a Uni where I had to do 3 subjects in the first year before specialising. A-level was all numbers and sums and equations and interesting things, while undergrad consisted of a bloke talking at me for hour after hour, and having 4 million lemmas to learn. For all n, where 1<=n<x, it can be shown that....zzzzzzzzzzzz.

That's exactly why I liked 1st year Maths at university compared to A-level! Proving those theorems, corollaries and lemmas shines a light on the beauty of the universe. I studied physics, so did pure and applied maths in the first year, specialising on applied in the second year (the stuff more relevant to physics). I agree that some of it could become tedious and abstract, but if you could understand it, it would become clear and I wouldn't have to "learn" it.

monquixote

Axe_meister said:

What problems do you need to solve as part of your job. That will at least point you into the maths direction.
I.e. if you are doing business related stuff then statistics is probably the direction you should explore.
Engineering then calculus and geometry are where it is at, if anything to do with fluid-dynamics then matrix calculations are key, especially if you move onto finite element/volume analysis 
Scientific again calculus is the starting point.
Control systems: Calculus and furrier transforms.
 

The things it would be really useful to understand would be mostly around the areas of signal processing, information theory, error correction, fourier transforms, etc.
Would probably be useful to know a bit more about statistical analysis and for personal interest I'd like to understand some of the maths around deep learning etc. 

stratman3142

FazTheWookie said:

I, and almost every other science/engineering student I knew at Uni, discovered the value of the book "Engineering Mathematics" by Ken Stroud. It was never on the reading list, but was a widely recommended and adopted solution to passing maths courses!

Yes, I've got Engineering Mathematics and Advanced Engineering Mathematics by Stroud. Also, Advanced Engineering Mathematics by Kreyszig.

A useful reference is "Schaum's Outline of Advanced Mathematics for Engineers and Scientists", that's not quite so expensive. It gives a quick overview of stuff. Then, for more info/explanation, you can generally find want you need by doing a bit of Googling.

CabbageCat

monquixote said:

Axe_meister said:

What problems do you need to solve as part of your job. That will at least point you into the maths direction.
I.e. if you are doing business related stuff then statistics is probably the direction you should explore.
Engineering then calculus and geometry are where it is at, if anything to do with fluid-dynamics then matrix calculations are key, especially if you move onto finite element/volume analysis 
Scientific again calculus is the starting point.
Control systems: Calculus and furrier transforms.
 

The things it would be really useful to understand would be mostly around the areas of signal processing, information theory, error correction, fourier transforms, etc.
Would probably be useful to know a bit more about statistical analysis and for personal interest I'd like to understand some of the maths around deep learning etc. 

Decision theory is quite interesting and presumably has some use in IT systems. If you're into (or want to get into) 3d programming then linear algebra can teach you some magical ways of chucking matrices at each other to generate space and position.

Can't give you any resources. I learned at school and uni. I reckon google and youtube will turn something up.

stratman3142

There's a free signal processing book at the link below.
http://www.dspguide.com/

I've got a copy.

monquixote

I'm thinking of starting off with the Kahn Academy maths course as a refresher.

UnclePsychosis

One of the best online reference sites is (or was, I haven't needed it recently) Mathworld at Wolfram:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com

I see that Wolfram also have an educational portal, I'd be willing to bet its pretty good:

http://education.wolfram.com/index.html

Ravenous

Differential & Integral calculus first I think. I don't know much about signal processing & fourier etc. but I think the basic calculus is what you need to get started with these. That's what I did around A level anyway.

Sporky

monquixote said:

I'm thinking of starting off with the Kahn Academy maths course as a refresher.

I was going to suggest that, except I was going to add some zazzle.

KHAAAAAAAAAN ACADEMY!

Like that.

Also Coursera is worth a look if you want to go more advanced.

thomasross20

I hadn't heard of those sites - there are so many now! 
Maths was taught over two years at Edinburgh and taught well - it was one of my favourite subjects.

close2u

I'm a Maths teacher (up to GCSE).
I can point you to some online tutorials that you may find useful.
Some need a password so that would be via pm.