help me learn maths

I would like to study teh maths on my own (without classrooms etc.)

Where should I begin?  I donno what to start with or how.

Dover textbooks. They're dirt cheap and pretty good.

>>1
lots of programs start with discrete math, or logic (studying symbolic logics up to predicate/first order, not reading about aristotle).  if you don't know what "conditional statement", "contradiction", and "negation" are, you should definitely learn some logic before you start.  you'll need to be able to understand what theorems are actually saying, and how to apply them.  from there, you can generally begin any field of math.

some names of things that generally only require understanding of logic and basic set notation to start doing are:
number theory
abstract algebra
linear algebra
set theory
analysis (of reals or complex numbers)

unless you mean you want to do calculus and shit, in which case, ignore all this, and go fuck yourself.

i will help u learn teh maths

If you've got univariate calculus under your belt, start with real analysis.  That will tell you right off the bat if you want to keep going or not.  If you haven't gotten through univariate calculus, go do that.

MIT's "open courseware" class on analysis is decent, but I don't like the book they picked.  Try "Understanding Analysis" by Stephen Abbott.

If you can't get through real analysis, don't bother with the rest of maths.  You'll never hack it.

>unless you mean you want to do calculus and shit, in which case, ignore all this, and go fuck yourself.

Why?

im eating strawberry cream mini-wheats

>>6

Because pure math is the only thing worth being called math.  Everything else is just fancy arithmetic.

RON PAUL /sci/,

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>>9
fuck off already

ok

>>8
Don't be such a dick.  Depending on op's level he still be at the point where "calculus" is just a buzzword to represent higher-level math.  & while being able to apply calculus is simple to the point of almost being mindless, actually understanding its intricacies in full is not such a simple task & certainly falls into the realm of higher-level math.  If "you want to do calculus *of variations* and shit", is that still fancy arithmetic to you?  Does that not qualify as calculus?

Not to mention that arithmetic is a subset of mathematics, regardless of how simple it is in comparison to the higher levels.  Everyone starts somewhere, don't be such a fucking elitist.

>>1
OP, I agree with some of the above to start with real analysis.  "Introduction to Real Analysis" by Bartle & Sherbert was the textbook I used & it's one of my favorite textbooks I've ever been assigned.  However, it assumes some prior experience in applying calculus, I don't know about the Abbott textbook mentioned above.  As far as getting through real analysis, I think most people are capable given willingness to learn & enough confidence for them to not go in expecting it to overwhelm them.  It may take more work for some than others, but if you're actually interested you should be able to take it on.  If you're having trouble with real analysis, go backward & look into anything the book reccommends as prerequisites.  I got A's in linear algebra & low-level calculus before I took it, but I didn't really have a good understanding of what was going on until a little later (especially with linear).  I'm really not sure if my prior "knowledge" with those actually helped me learn.

>>12
Sounds like someone couldn't hack real math classes and flunked out once they had to do more than just remember identities.

The discussion of the structure of arithmetic is a subset of mathematics.  Answering "what is 2+2" is a life skill.  Your view is akin to saying that drawing up and solving truth tables is doing logic.  It's not.  Blindly applying rules to solve specific instances of a problem is not math.

>>13
Not >>12 but I DO happen to be finishing my PhD in Maths (topology, specifically properties of certain metrics on Cantor sets) and all of his comments are pertinent and sound.

Algebra is maths.  It's simple maths that should be a basic prerequisite for being considered human, but it's still maths.  Just because something's actually applied and useful doesn't mean it's not math.

TL,DR: Fuck you.

OP: Abbott is a decent introductory book, good if you're just starting, but not in depth enough for serious study.  Analysis is where the computationally useful but conceptually simple math begins to give way to the really interesting and beautiful stuff.  Start there if you can.

>>14
and where would "there" be?

>>14
Seeing someone RAGE about applied math not being real math is basically the number one indicator that said person failed a low-level applied math course and is trying to justify it.
(Equivalently, seeing someone RAGE about pure math being mental masturbation is the number one indicator that said person failed a low-level pure math course and is trying to justify it.)

>>14
>>16
dear topology fag and psychology fag,
i excel at everything i do, and you are both wrong.  that said, i do better in "applied math" courses, because they're fuckshit stupid and don't require any actual thought.  math, my dear fruitbags, is the study of relations and the sort, not the menial task of substituting identities.  if you'd like to call it math simply because mathematics formalizes the systems and algorithms for doing it, go ahead, but no one in their right mind would call a calculator a mathematician.

>Only a complete idiot would decide to go into something like engineering instead of earning their brownie points by devoting their studies to REAL mathematics.

(for the record I greatly prefer working on more pure math, but this is just ridiculous)

Are people seriously trying to argue that algebra on the integers is NOT part of mathematics?  Are we going to throw out (to pick a random example) everything that has to do with prime numbers just because it commits the cardinal sin of only involving multiplication on Z+?

I mean, I know /sci/ was full of dumbshits talking right out of their fucking ass, but this is fucking ridiculous.

Sadly, it's hard to tell who's trolling here, and who really is that fucking dumb.

>>19
We're talking about algebra in the sense of "HOW MANY CATS ARE IN THIS ROOM IF 12 LEGS ARE IN THIS ROOM OF CATS" not "LETS DISCUSS THE PROPERTIES OF GROUPS"

I don't care about groups.  They can go fuck themselves.

I think it's only one person arguing that arithmetic is not math.

>>20
4 because I cut one leg off of all of them

I must begin a great journey of learning