How do I improve at math? Please be specific (study strategies,

>Expecting specific answers when you don't ask specific questions

>>6845446
Study a lot. The only way.

>>6845446
If you haven't figured that out yet, give up.

>>6845446
I heard there's a machine that shocks your brain. Inventors say it improves your math skills from this action The machine is relatively cheap costing the price of a math textbook. What are you waiting for? All your friends are doing it! Get your Zip-O-Mathshockio1000 now! Who doesn't want inferior cognitive abilities?

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mild-brain-shock-may-improve-math-skills/

>>6845446
Learn logic and geometry and the rest of maths follows from there. The best thing you can do is learn the underlying concepts that serve as the basis for everything else.
Also try to pay attentions to how different concepts are connected. Always try to notice the relationships between things.

Use ur brain,dont be lazy

>>6845446
I had to take Cal 1 three times before I passed it.

I am slapping the shit out of Cal 2 right now. Want to know why? Because I got off my ass finally practiced for a few hours a week.

Seriously, just practice nigga. If a retard like me can pass Cal 2 with an A or B you can definitley do better.

>>6845446
git gud

Just study man, what's the problem?
If you are new at math you can't expect to do advanced stuff after a week. It takes time and long term exposure to stuff.

>>6845448
Not OP, I have a specific question.

I seem to understand the point where I do homeworks with no or little problem and generally understand the material.

The problem is, when a test comes by, it takes a completely new approach to the problem which utterly confuses me and makes me fail hard.

Do I just do more examples or try to find different kinds of examples with different approach?

>>6845446
>discrete math

retard detected

>>6845593
discrete is generally harder than calculus if you go to anything above a babby tier school

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>>6845660

No

>>6845708
This implies that you think calculus is hard. Which means you are probably an idiot.

>>6845715
Calculus is for pussies. Take a proper course like analysis.
Let computer do the calculating, and human brain the thinking.

>>6845708
this shithead is always posting some community college discrete math book as a troll.

hey shithead, you're an unemployed moron toiling his life away in your mom's basement. your trolls are fucking retarded.

Also, read the rules about trolling outside /b/.

>>6845718
>just did analysis, thinks discrete is easy
God save us from 19 yr olds and their pissing contests.

If you think discrete math is easy please prove the Hadwiger conjecture for n >2, or the Erdős–Szekeres conjecture.

Most fields can be made as difficult.

>>6845735
Discrete math is basically analysis but for CS students with some grab theory thrown in. There's nothing easy about it if you take it at a good university.

>>6845757
>Discrete math is basically analysis
Lol no.

Discrete math is a big topic, most of which is high-falutin' ivory tower pure math.

However there's a little ghetto of discrete math that gets taught a lot to CS students.

>>6845771
you've obviously never taken discrete math at a university level and you have no idea what you're talking about.

>>6845757
>grab theory
I meant graph theory, of course... fucking autocorrect.

>>6845552
OP here; just got back from classes. This is the most helpful post so far.

I think this is my biggest problem: I assume every problem I can solve is trivial but every time I can't solve a problem--perhaps something "advanced"--I feel stupid.

>>6845660
>>6845735
>>6845782

I attend a Big Ten school. The professor promises it will be hard.

>>6845812
I took it at MIT in 2007. It was hard. Average was around ~65.

>>6845782
>you've obviously never taken discrete math at a university level and you have no idea what you're talking about.
You are obviously not fit to judge. What you think is discrete math is not all of discrete math. for example graph theory is a branch of discrete math, yet earlier you thought it a separate subject.

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>>6845802
I've been there OP, and I actually still am. Sometimes I feel like I can attack some subject and figure out something by myself but I fail because in the meantime I realize there is some subtlety I don't quite understand enough.
So I just keep trying, eventually searching for even more material to get a different point of view on the matter.
I think this last strategy is useful. Just read read read and always try to make connections. Even a different phrasing of something often gives you that "oh!" moment where you finally get it.

>>6845825
>You are obviously not fit to judge.
yet you, the guy who's trolling and has never taken discrete math, is fit to judge? come on dude… if you need to shitpost, go to >>>/b/ and do it there. don't waste our time in here.

>>6845857
>projection troll
2/10, i replied

>>6845865
>deflection troll
I ain't projecting shit. it's you who's constantly posting the same few shitty pictures and is constantly trolling.

>>6845868
I have posted no pictures here m8

>>6845857
>taken discrete math
You do not define a field of math by some entry level course within that field. Unless you have aspergers, where you typically confuse one's own knowledge with the sum of all knowledge.

>>6845715

They're both equally pathetic

>>6845757
>Discrete math is basically analysis

Baby level series and limits aren't analysis

>There's nothing easy about it if you take it at a good university

Only if your a CS ninny. Intelligent people will find it overly trivial and be bored to death in the course.

>>6845771

This. All discrete math courses are watered down to the point they can barely be called "math" anymore.

>>6845782
>you've obviously never taken discrete math at a university level and you have no idea what you're talking about.

I have taken it at a major top 3 school for CS as well as skimmed through many of the major textbooks used for discrete math courses and it is all J-O-K-E. You can try to brush it away that fact by claiming the insulter is ignorant of the subject or goes to a shit school but it won't make it any less true. True, many do fail it but only because CS majors can hardly form a single logical thought if their lives depended on it.

>>6845892
>your
>Intelligent

kek

>>6845892
What a retard. You're like the stupidest motherfucker on /sci/… which is quite an accomplishment since there's plenty of /x/ retards on here.

>>6845917
>common typo
>meaning anything

>>6845932
A typo is a failure of dexterity. It's pretty hard to misstype you're to your because your fingers fluffed.

>>6845930
>believing CS is not pathetic

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>>6845917

>>6845936
They're the ones paying for your welfare you retard. Be kind to them. Don't hate the game, hate your pathetic life instead.

>>6845939
>I point out error
>It gets interpreted as an error

You know you can actually pay attention to what is going on, rather than just jump in and seem retarded.

>>6845461
What are some good basic logic books?

What a stupid fucking argument above. Perhaps at some universities, Discrete Mathematics is actually an interesting class. At most unis I've seen it is an extremely basic introduction to the concepts of graph theory and combinatorics - yes the actual field of 'discrete math' is huge, but usually a class called Graph Theory will teach you important theorems, not one called Discrete Mathematics. At my university, discrete math is a shit tier class that only comp sci people take. But I can see how it could be formulated to a junior or senior class if they really wanted to, and perhaps thats the case at other dude's school. Any-fucking-ways, the real question is to OP: Have you actually looked at the textbook and perhaps the professors web page for the discrete mathematics class? Is it a junior/senior level class?
An important thing I think to improving is just to not gloss over shit when you don't understand. You know those times in class when you ask a professor a question, and then he says some more shit and you're still confused but just nod your head anyways? Don't do that shit. You know those other times when you read the book and it's confusing so you just do it the exact way your prof taught you and you don't make it a habit to understand the book? Don't do that shit. You know those times when you're space case about a specific problem because you forgot a trig identity or something so you just ignore it, move on, and don't think twice about it? Don't do that shit.
When a problem seems hard, difficult to understand, etc: spend the time doing it, as that's likely where your understanding will come from. The second you truly understand the roots of how something works, it makes it extremely obvious how to proceed when you're stuck. Until then, you gotta get yourself unstuck by careful consideration of all the rules, etc.
Also you sound like you're on the right track anyways, just don't slack off.

>>6845950
Your intro to proofs class likely went over quite a bit of basic logic, whether you knew it or not. The quantifiers you used (for all, there exists) are pointed out in intro to logic classes, as well as how to represent arguments symbolically, etc. I'm in an intro Logic course right now and it's stupid easy, haven't learned shit aside from like 5 definitions which I could have easily learned without the class. All the "hard shit" was taught to me in my intro to proofs class awhile ago.

>>6845966
Should have said that I am not OP. I am planning on going to uni next year to study mathematics and I plan to study some before I go there.

>>6845950
If you've had little exposure to formal logic or set theory then try Tarski's Inroduction to Logic (Tarski was one of the best and most brilliant logicians of all time and a great writer). If your somewhat familiar with the subject then try Mathematical Logic by Stephen Kleene.

>>6846007
I have had very little exposure to it so I will buy the one written by Tarski, thank you for the tip.

>>6845488
>cal 1
>3 times
>mentally challenged
Pick 3.

>>6845446
Exercite

Whoever thinks discrete math is "easy" is either a teen with 0 contact with the subject or studied on a shitty university.

During my CS course i usually got much better grades at math than my colleagues (while getting worse at the rest), including on discrete math. Probably because o enjoyed the courses more.

I'd say: study hard and do a lot of exercises(specially the hard ones). I don't think this is as obvious as
it seems, because it is surprising how we suddenly start getting intuition on the subject when we do a lot of exercises. Also, people tend to overestimate what they understood from the theory - they solve just the easiest problems to check if they got the main idea and that's it. The hardest problems are by far the best ones to learn - because you usually have to try a lot of alternatives and use multiple concepts to solve them (and it takes a lot of time to solve them), so you end up memorizing and getting fluent in the techniques while you do it.

Furthermore,

>>6845446
do maths

>>6845935
*flips trilby*

>>6846042
>no you

>>6845892
While I do agree that most CS math courses are too easy, I have to say that you are full of shit.

I highly doubt you came close to a top 3 CS/math uni.

>>6846105
Of course he didn't.

>>6845446
Just do it.

>>6846105
of course not. he's a shitposter who continually posts 3 diff anti-CS trolls. he lives in his mom's basement and he's unemployed.

>>6845446

Watch Pi between three and five times across the course of a week. During that same week watch at least two episodes of numb3rs each day.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433309/?ref_=nv_sr_2

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

>>6845532
/thred

how do i memorize these trig functions

>>6846226
e^{iz}=\cos z + i \sin z

>>6846036
>implying that a university having a freshman/sophomore class on discrete mathematics and having any other further classes in a more specific subfield of disc math is a shitty university

>>6845854
This is very helpful and encouraging. Thank you.

>>6846105
>Whoever thinks discrete math is "easy" is either a teen with 0 contact with the subject or studied on a shitty university.

It's easy and no number of struggling cs majors can prove otherwise. Plenty of business majors struggle like hell in college algebra but that doesn't make that course difficult either.

>But muh mathematicians that study algebra professionally, it's got to be god tier difficult! You just went to a shit school that taught it badly or never took it. At my awesome elementary school, algebra was extremely difficult and abstract!!!

>>6846016
the thing is he passed, so fuck off

>>6846226
-Euler: e^(ia)=cos(a)+isin(a)
-Linear mapping of rotating vector with angle b. Then see that (1,0) maps to (cos b,sin b) and (0,1) to (-sin b,cos b). Now you have entries of the 2x2 matrix. Then you only need to multiply it by vector (cos a,sin a) and you get (cos a+b,sin a+b).

>>6845854
tfw science is a never-ending rabbit hole.

>>6846390
It sounds like you have no idea what discrete math or algebra actually are.

>>6846473
You're failing to see the comparison

A discrete math course is to graph theory and combinatorics as what a grade 4 algebra class is to field theory. CS majors are making a false dichotomy to their discrete math course and the underlining field of study where insulting the course is the same as insulting the field of study. No forth grader is studying abstract algebra in any degree of real depth and no CS major is studying graph theory and combinatorics in any degree of real depth regardless of how "shitty" my 4th grade class was and awesome yours was. If you and your friends struggled in algebra, it means you're not as intelligent as you think and not that grade 4 algebra is really truly difficult.

>>6846814

If I'm (re)teaching myself programming from scratch, partly for fun, should I also teach myself discreet math to go along with it? If so, then Khan Academy or are there other videos and books online that do it better or that I should just supplement with?

Also, what's a typical programming assignement where mastery of discreet math concepts would be essential?

>>6846814
There were googlers in my college and they also didn't think our DM was easy.
For instance, try proving Zeckendorf's theorem , this was one of the questions our 1st test.

You also revealed your complete inexperience by showing you don't understand how hard problems can be constructed form simple concepts.

>>6847794
>For instance, try proving Zeckendorf's theorem , this was one of the questions our 1st test.

It's just an extremely simple induction for both existence and uniqueness

>>6845593
>>6845708
>>6845718
>>6845757
>>6845782
>>6845825
>>6845892
>>6845958
>>6846036


I'm not any of the other anons you replied to. Maybe you guys go to shit universities, but at my uni discrete math was a junior level course that taught combinatorics, graph theory, computational complexity theory, higher level geometry, and included proofs.

Sounds like you guys attend shiity universities that offer shit classes. Sorry you guys aren't offered real math courses.

>>6848418
>combinatorics, graph theory, computational complexity theory, higher level geometry, and included proofs

And all those things are pathetically easy

>>6848420

Recursion theory is typically introduced prior to Computational Complexity theory. Recursion theory isn't easy, not is Computational Complexity. If Computational Complexity were easy then studying complexity classes and randomness (e.g. Kolmogorov complexity) would be easy. The proofs would be trivial and there wouldn't be open questions in the field. So, get the fuck out of here with you uneducated shit.

>>6845446
>I am taking an introduction to proofs course
I wish I had that. At best they gave us a week-long introduction to proofs, and at worst they assumed we were familiarized with them.

Needless to say, academically that was the hardest semester I had in my life.

>>6848426


autocorrect, not -> nor, you -> your*

>>6848420

You have to understand computability to understand noncomputability. Noncomputability is the meat of Recursion theory, but there are other areas like Reverse mathematics. To say that shit is easy means you have no idea what you are talking about. So yeah, fuck off.

>>6848420

muhh math subject is hurder van urs. That's why you do physics. Only autistics study math.

>>6848434
>>6848426
>implying your pathetic survey course does any of that justice

see
>>6846814

start homework early and really think about it until you get it
write a nice solution
repeate

>>6848449

No, they were on par with the other pure math classes I took. Esp. since it was offered in the math dept. Sounds like you just go to a shit school.

Undergraduate discrete math classes are usually a joke.

You will get much better. Intelligence is Working Memory.

Learn C programming, write the program that scrambles keys and saves a file. It will take take less time to memorize the new keyboard than to type normally on it. This is a awesome practice.

>>6848470
>It wasn't a pathetic survey course. It was on par with my other pure math & theoretical CS courses. You are a piece of shit.

Yes, you learnt how to do proofs and immediately went on to postdoc level papers as deep exercises and in no way shallow in content. Right....

If you have to learn how to do proofs then you definitely do NOT have the mathematical maturity and exposure to cover combinatorics, graph theory, and computational complexity theory with any true degree of depth.

>>6848481
>Sounds like you just go to a shit school

Post the detailed course syllabus and I'll point out how crappy your course is if you really believe it to be incredibly difficult and special.

>All this arguing over something the OP only mentioned in passing to illustrate at what level he was already able to do math

Anyway, may as well ask this here, I'm practically a retard, never got very far in math (only ever got past the most pleb baby stuff), though I could usually do pretty decently at it if I was tutored and picked it up quickly. It just always left my head pretty quickly as I was never inclined to practice.

Anyways, the point of that stupid story is I wanted to ask, what makes you enjoy math, doing problems for practice and all that. Now and when you fist started off with pleb baby stuff like I'm currently stuck with. I'm looking for insight as to how to change my view of it, and hopefully enjoy it as well so I can actually get good at it, and be less of a retard.

>>6848506

It wasn't a course where you 'learned to do proofs'. It was assumed background, being it was a junior level course offered in the mathematics department. The CS department offered a "discrete math" course which is the shitty version on par with what you are thinking of. The math department offered a higher caliber course in discrete math. Funny how you think all course contents in "discrete math" is universal.

>>6845821
Sorry for coming completely out of the blue, but what do you think got you into MIT (implying you're not trying to swing your imaginary wang around the internet), and would you be willing to share any tips for studying material?

>>6848508
I am very optimistic about math. I hold a constant belief of using it All soon in the future. I view the biggest reward when I think about mathematics, logic...

>>6848500
This.

>>6848524
It's still a survey course with no meat on it's bones.

Combinatorics, graph theory, mathematical logic, computational complexity, number theory, group theory, probability, cryptography, and the other usual suspects in DM would all each make for nice standalone course(s) on the topic at the undergrad level. The fact that you're bipolarly moving from one to another in a single course inarguably means you spend less than a month on one subject before moving on to another leaving you no room to develop the theory on any one. Therefore your discrete math course is going to end up being a joke collection of a bunch of simple definitions and trivial corollaries to them.

DM courses are shit EVERYWHERE guaranteed and could easily be taught to below average highschoolers.

>>6848418
>muh b+
A junior level class in any mathematical subject is not that hard man. Linear algebra, intro to analysis are junior level courses. Get out of here with your broad overview class being 'suh hard', and your college being 'suh 1337' because you wrote proofs for the part of your course that wasn't 'find the time complexity of the Kuhn-Munkres algorithm' or 'find a minimum weight spanning tree using Kruskal's/Prim's' or 'if Sally is accual a faggot OP and has 17 dicks to suck, 10 are black men and the rest white, how many combinations of niggers fucking Chinese midgets can you fit in your butthole'

Here's a helpful tutorial

OP if you want a real job after college please take numerical analysis, linear programming and statistics/probability. Do not be the moron who can only do things on paper.

www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Matrix-Computations-David-Watkins/dp/0470528338

>>6848592
These types of classes are precisely why when I was younger and good at math I was like 'God damnit why can't I be good at something else instead.' Fuck those courses!
but poster is right in that they'll be good to know for almost any industry you'll likely be applying to. Also PDEs can be good to know because engineers are afraid of them but they're really useful in a lot of different industries.

>>6845446
you have to pay attention to all details and nuances of the theory to be good in math

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>tfw attempting to learn math in my spare time but trying to get into it either frustrates me, puts me to sleep or gives me some sort of headache.
I don't know what the feeling's called, but it's like having a huge amount of pressure on one part of your skull. I'm assuming it's just stubbornness though.

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Take some NZT !

>>6848544
>>6848573

Butthurt autistics in the thread.

>>6848779
it's called GET HIGH

>>6846446
>-Linear mapping of rotating vector with angle b
Please elaborate

>>6848498
But muh logical quantifiers and induction and Eulerian paths and Dykstra search theoretical graph theory and combinations formula and big Oh notation and NP complexity classes and and Euler's theorem in ultra advanced pure number theory!

Like only 0.0000000001% of people can possibly hope to understand them with their highly theoretically deep content and rigorous proofs. You just went to a shit school that just did 1+1=2 all day in your discrete math class. Mine was crazy hard and everyone failed like 5 times!

>>6849283
[cos(θ+φ)]=[cos(θ) -sin(θ)]*[cos(φ)]
[sin(θ+φ) ]=[sin( θ) cos(θ)]*[sin(φ) ]

>>6849300
Where were you before I took the GRE?

>>6849289
The fact that the only things you even know about graph theory are extremely basic knob level shit that you learn in a discrete math course is exactly why you're a faggot. Nice try.

>>6849289
?????????????? what the fuck you just listed entry level combinatorics / introduction to algorithms material

how can that be 0.000000000001%

>>6849353
>>6849366
>2014
>4chan
>STILL feeding trolls

>>6849366
>joke

>your head

>>6849353
>implying that isn't all you learn

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-042j-mathematics-for-computer-science-fall-2010/readings/
http://math.berkeley.edu/~bernd/math55.html
http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs70/fa14/
http://www.math.cmu.edu/~lohp/2013-228.shtml
http://www.math.cmu.edu/~tbohman/21-228/discrete.html

Discrete math is shit EVERYWHERE and covers next to nothing

>>6849431
Wait what? I'm in agreeance with this post.

>>6849431
>Guys I found out material in the undergrad introductory class in most decent university is almost the same, introductory!

aren't you a bright one