What are good books for learning about math? Not textbooks, but books that provide insight into mathematical phenomena.
Depending what you're looking for, Lehoczky and Ruszczyk's The Art of Problem Solving is excellent, as is Zeitz's The Art and Craft of Problem Solving. The underlying material is accessible to middle-school and high-school students respectively, but if the math you've seen so far feels like "rote memorization" then either of these will be a big eye-opener, no matter how much of it you've learned. Both of them show you a great deal of math problems and help you learn to solve math problems creatively.In a different vein, John Allen Paulos's Beyond Numeracy is one of many excellent books that present mathematical ideas for a general audience with a focus on understanding the big ideas that get math people excited.Update: Not a book, but close enough: the authors of the first book I mentioned now have an online math-teaching application called Alcumus (http://www.artofproblemsolving.c...). Haven't used it myself, but it has a laudatory blurb from Vern Williams, who is the best math teacher I know (and may be the best in the country, as far as such a thing could be determined.) Worth a try, and I'd be curious to hear from anyone who has tried it.
I want to learn java? not very good at math?
I want to learn to computer program, I'm not really a genius with computers just yet, but I'm fairly well with troubleshooting common computer issues. I never really went to high school, so I missed alot of important math and am worried it will hold me back with learning java, and other computer programming languages. I basically only know the math basics, subtraction, addition, division, multiplication, etc. Should I even bother trying to learn to program in java, or any language if that? If so, which languages should I start with?
Why can't i learn math?
no matter how much i study or who teaches me i can't get the hang of it, ever sinse elementary school i have been struggling with math, algebra etc, really just anything with numbers in it, and it depresses me a lot that i can't even add or subtract in my head, just little numbers, and i often get very distracted when studying, but even if i'm fully concentrated and i learn, i forget most things the next day, even if i studied the night before, i'm good at differential calculus but only because it's just fallowing formulas, (i'm good at physics) why am i not good at math? do i have some kind of learning disorder? i'm pretty good at other things, like literature, and languages and art and music, but not knowing math really affects my grades and it's the one class i have always failed year after year...
Math learning disorder?
A math disability is called dyscalculia. See the link below to read all about it. You don't say how old you are, but if you're still in public school, you might be eligible for a special math class. My daughter had the same problem and her math teacher was no help. So I wrote a letter to the school asking them to evaluate her for learning disabilities because of the great disparity between her math ability and her grades in her other classes. They put her in a math class with only 7 other students and a very good math and special education teacher and she did very well in math after that. Good luck to you!
I think I might have a learning disability in math?
There is a disorder which affects your maths its called dyscalculia. Dyscalculia - affects the person ability to grasp math concepts, struggles to do multiplication, division, addition, subtraction, fractions, formulas, confuses math symbols and remembering times tables. Numbers can be reversed or transposed 519 might look like 915 or 17 looks like 71, 9 & 3 might look like an 8 etc. There is a few things you & your teachers can do that might help; Print off a copy of all the maths symbols, their meaning and laminate them, keep one for home & one for school. (see links below). Print off a copy of times tables, laminate them, again keep one for home & one for school. When doing maths use graph paper to help keep numbers inline and help you add, divide, multiply etc. This really does help, and some students find it useful to use coloured pencils to do their maths. Teach only one math concept at time (division, fractions etc at the same time can be confusing) and review previous lesson to be student understands what has been taught. Have clear step by step examples how to do addition, division etc. Use other methods of learning such as visual, auditory, calculators, abacus, blocks etc. Allow extra time to do the work Be creative by using scales, measuring cups etc to help teach fractions, addition etc. I did this with my daughter and she soon got the idea how a fraction worked. Dyslexia, dyscalculia & dysgraphia is a hereditary disorder, however some people have no known family history. Having a parent, grand parent, uncle or aunt with dyslexia increases a persons risk of having it too. Speak to your parents and ask if there is any family history of dyslexia, show them the links on dyscalculia. Both my daughter and I have dyslexia, which affects all aspects of learning for us both, but how it affects us both is differently, my daughter can read very well, but her hand writing, spelling, maths memory etc is greatly affected. Where as I have more problems with reading, but I can read (I did not learn to read until I was 14), despite being able to write quite well, my maths etc were also greatly affected by the dyslexia.
I do not have strong mathematics background, what should I learn in mathematics to be able to master Machine Learning and AI?
I think the first question you should ask yourself is what you want to do with machine learning. Obviously, not everyone needs to be researchers like Yan Lecunn or Ian Goodfellow who invents new network topologies. In my opinion, there can be different levels:Machine Learning “Practitioners” - focuses on using ML theories to solve real problems, e.g. using CNN to detect problems on turbines by analyzing sonic waves. These kinds of applications actually would require one to have more knowledge in a certain field rather than ML itself. An understanding of ML algorithms and what they can do is pretty good enough.Machine Learning System Builders - focuses on how to implement practical systems utilizing ML theories. This has more focus on big data systems, e.g. knowledge of Spark and Kafka. Need to have a basic idea of model tuning and some math behind it.Machine Learning Algorithm Engineers - needs to be able to understand papers from arixv.org, own a good grasp of new developments and be able to implement the algorithm using Tensorflow or Pytorch. Preferably with MS or Phd who can read those papers.Researchers - people who focus more on the theory part and try to invent new ways of building models. Of couse this type requires one to have the strongest math background.Not everyone needs to be researchers or algorithm engineers. Actually, I think having 1 or 2 of these people in a team is enough. More people of type 1 and 2 are needed to maintain the model and the system to have it actually creating value.
If I find Machine Learning appealing but I'm not good at math, should I still pursue this path?
I remember standing at this very crossroads once few months back. What did I do? I went for machine learning anyway.First of all, there is a very thin line between being bad at something and otherwise. It's hard to determine if you really are bad at something. I remember days when I thought I was bad at Computer Science in first place; it all changed with time.Perhaps you have always been stuck with the kind of mathematics that wouldn't be required in machine learning as Vijay Nadadur pointed out in his answer. Perhaps you've always had a pretty bad teacher in your school days and you always scored bad at math so you thought you were really bad at it yourself.For me, both the conditions I mentioned above matched perfectly. So one fine day while watching a movie (it was A Beautiful Mind; you should watch it too), I decided to screw up the stupid ideas and just get my hands dirty with mathematics. So, I started with basics, got a little help from Coursera; and you have to trust me on this one -- Math for me is now more interesting than it ever was.It's easier once you have a motive other than stupid school/college exams. It's easier when you actually want to learn and not memorise. Just make sure that that you know which side of thin line you stand on.