How come higher Math is nothing more than alphabet soup? I started
You are currently reading a thread in /sci/ - Science & Math
How come higher Math is nothing more than alphabet soup? I started off with Elementary Algebra and at least it was understandable when taking notes. I'm now in differential equations and most of the concepts are written like alphabet soup that I don't even understand what's going on. It's only when the professor is doing the homework problems that I understand how to do the steps. I was looking at higher Math and they are using weird ass letters that I don't even know if those are suppose to be numbers or something. Why do we need to decipher what is written just to decipher on how to do the problems?
just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.
>complaining about greek letters and other symbols
>differential equations
>higher math
Symbols make math harder than they look
Try searching on youtube if there are relevant MIT lectures in your course. You may find it useful to pause the lecture and work out the examples on your own, before resumption. Once you get the hang of it you will find that problems you thought were difficult were only so because you didn't have enough time to think about it until the class moved on. Then you can laugh at how half the class is hopelessly lost and is just nodding like people who watch family guy and pretend to get all the references.
>>7653081
addendum: remember that math is a marathon and not a sprint. Kids who do good at math in HS and undergrad are sprinters. Your best bet is to persevere (and offer to be a slave to the prof, they like that and it will get you recs that are more important than grades in certain cases).
>>7653064
>its basic because i know it
>>7653101
Diff eqs [math]are[/math] basic
>>7653101
>it's not basic because i learned it in college
Is this the place for normalfag memes?
If you think you know math without understanding how or WHY equations can be generalized to a variable which represents any element of a class of numbers (reals, complex, etc) you don't really know math, you just know how to repeat an algorithm to work through math problems
>>7653101
Freshman engineering math is basic though
>>7653101
nah senpai compared to the shit you have to do in upper division, its trivial. And that's still undergraduate
>>7653175
I honestly wish I was told this when I was in community. Now that in actually in uni, my grades have suffered, but I now know how I should be learning.
>>7653175
oh my god, we know
>>7653101
>learned in your first/second semester of college
>not basic
okay
>>7653203
I think derivatives should be taught in grade 11 or so
>>7653175
And this is also why computer science is so valuable (in b4 memes). Because if you understand the generalization, you can teach it to a computer and move onto more important shit than solving integrals by hand.
>>7653175
Medfag here. Can you enlighten me then on why is that important and where does one learn it?
>>7653154
Tell that to Perelman
>>7653457
http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/514/conjectures-that-have-been-disproved-with-extremely-large-counterexamples
>>7653496
Moar pls
>>7652979
>How come higher Math is nothing more than alphabet soup?
Because abstraction. The more abstract you solve a problem, the bigger its general scope will be.
If you solve a problem for exactly the numbers you have, you will have to solve the next one again. However if you solve it at a higher level, e.g "for all fields" or "for all banach spaces" or "for all normed algebras", you will likely have solved all problems of that kind at one go.
That's why the solutions are kept abstract, to retain a broad scope.
At what point in math do you stop actually finding numerical answers?
>>7653885
Algebra 1
>>7653967
Huh? I'm in calc II and we still solve equations to roots.
>>7654055
Algebra I is intro to group theory.
>>7653885
differential equations. most of it is solving for families of solutions.
>>7652979
it's the best way to write those things, maybe? shit thread
>>7653885
as soon as you take any math class, not math tools for engineering.
so that's usually analysis 1 / linear algebra 1
(no, not the matrix manipulation engineering class usually called "linear algebra", these are proof-based)
>>7654228
Abstract Algebra 1?
"Algebra 1" is 7th grade math where you learn to solve first degree polynomials and graph straight lines.
>>7654311
no, "Algebra 1" is the common name. we're talking university-level here, there's no reason to consider grade school names as an issue.
>>7654317
At my university we use "Algebraic Structures I and II for the undergrad class and Algebra I and II for the graduate class.
DESU this is kinda true, certain points in math become devoid of pretty much any physical value or meaning.
Even areas which matter become so specific and essentially intractable it makes it feel kinda pointless.
Who else 2.5 diff eq here?
>>7653221
Program a computer to prove that no local isometry exists between the unit sphere and a torus.
Just because you "generalize" something with symbols doesn't mean you can program a computer to do it.
>>7654317
Most textbooks (and by extension most colleges) call that abstract algebra.
Which makes sense. In its most literal definition, algebra is concerned with numbers.
Abstract algebra removes it from the reals to study the underlying structures.
i.e. "abstracting" it
>>7653885
You always find numerical answers. In fact there are two kinds of mathematicians :
> those who say numerical applications are shitty/simple/boring and who only do theory.
> those who do the theory AND spend the extra hour working out some numerical examples.
Many people in math believe that the more abstract, the better, so they only cope for abstraction. In the end, they can't do basic calculations and they have a flawy grasp of theories.
>>7653206
They are in several countries.
>>7652979
Because computers can solve numerics faster than you. Most of the time what computers can't do is find interesting structures and the like.
>>7653101
It is objectively basic math
>>7652979
What is she doing out of kitchen?
>>7654760
>>>/9gag/