Courses & Video Lectures. A Visual, Intuitive Guide to Imaginary Numbers. Imaginary numbers always confused me.
Like understanding e, most explanations fell into one of two categories: It’s a mathematical abstraction, and the equations work out. Deal with it.It’s used in advanced physics, trust us. Just wait until college. Gee, what a great way to encourage math in kids! Focusing on relationships, not mechanical formulas.Seeing complex numbers as an upgrade to our number system, just like zero, decimals and negatives were.Using visual diagrams, not just text, to understand the idea.
And our secret weapon: learning by analogy. It doesn’t make sense yet, but hang in there. Video Walkthrough: Really Understanding Negative Numbers Negative numbers aren’t easy. But what about 3-4? Negatives were considered absurd, something that “darkened the very whole doctrines of the equations” (Francis Maseres, 1759). What happened? Rather than saying “I owe you 30” and reading words to see if I’m up or down, I can write “-30” and know it means I’m in the hole.
Uh oh. Unsolved Problems. Game Theory 101: Game Theory Made Easy. Calculus Mega Cheat Sheet. How Mathematics Can Make Smart People Dumb - Ben O'Neill. Mathematics can sometimes make smart people dumb.
Let me explain what I mean by this. I don't mean that it is dumb not to be good at mathematics. After all, mathematics is a highly abstract and challenging discipline requiring many years (decades even) of study, and there are plenty of very smart people who have little understanding of it, and little ability to use it. What I mean is that mathematics quite often bamboozles people into accepting very silly arguments — arguments that are so silly that if you stated them without draping them in mathematical negligee, you would instantly become an object of ridicule to all those people who flunked out at basic algebra back in high school. The danger of mathematical arguments is that a person can sometimes follow an absurd path of reasoning without being alerted to its absurdity, due to the fact that their mind is so lost in the verbiage of mathematical equations that their common sense fails to penetrate it.
But wait a minute. Notes. Free Mathematics Books Download Free Mathematics Ebooks Online Mathematics tutorials. Math doesn't suck, you do. Every time I hear someone say "I suck at math," I immediately think he or she is a moron.
If you suck at math, what you really suck at is following instructions. This shirt is birth control. Sucking at math is like sucking at cooking. I'm tired of eating shitty food because you're too much of a dipshit to follow a recipe. Also, I'm tired of hearing people brag about how they can't cook like it's some kind of badge of honor. Math is exactly like cooking: just follow the recipe. Math isn't some voodoo that only smart people understand. Theoretical math is cool as shit. Ever heard of Pascal's triangle?