Maths

[rmurphy195]

Haven't touched the subject of Maths properly since my "O" levels many yeara ago (remember them?).

Anyone any ideas or recommendations for a starting point/textbook to pick up so I can see if my passing interest is just that (passing!)?

Cheers - Richard

[Cyril Haearn]

I used to know that: Maths:
stuff you forgot from school, by Chris Waring, ISBN 978 - 1-84317 474-5

BTW, I think I use maths a lot. Just not the things we learned at school
I took and failed A-level

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
I used to fall to sleep every double maths
The teacher never called me by my first name .......................until I came top in the mocks to the surprise of top boy who was also my mate and sat next to me (we weren't alike).....I always remember his head turning to look at me.....I wonder what he thought that moment.........

Its like every thing in life "use it or lose it", I still work out things in my head but mainly geometry based problems, a little different in just remembering lines in tables.

[hjd10]

Haven't touched the subject of Maths properly since my "O" levels many yeara ago (remember them?).

Anyone any ideas or recommendations for a starting point/textbook to pick up so I can see if my passing interest is just that (passing!)?

Cheers - Richard

BBC Bitesize online is good for GCSE level.

[gaz]

Anyone any ideas or recommendations for a starting point/textbook to pick up so I can see if my passing interest is just that (passing!)?

Next thing you know you'll be writing spreadsheets to calculate gear inches and spoke lengths .

[mercalia]

it is surprising how easy you can find it when you are older.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/subjects/maths.shtml

[fausto copy]

Like most others I took Maths O-level and got a good grade pass.
It was all about factorisation and integrated something or others, which I've never needed since.
It was all learnt parrot fashion and logic never came into it.

For instance, if there were four of us say in a cafe and there were three cakes to share out, I always worked out portions by halving the number three, which I'd worked out to be one and a half and then halved that, knowing it to be three quarters.

It was many years later when I was watching Johnny Ball on the TV with my 6 year old son, that I realised you just put 3 over 4 (as a fraction) to work it out simply.

Thankfully, I think they teach maths these days relating to much more practical situations.

[old_windbag]

Outside of your request for a maths text book( there are free legal pdf books online if you search around) its good to download the past papers from the various exam boards. These tend to be free and come with the main paper, marks sheet with the solution expected and examiners comments. They would give you genuine exam standard questions to try your hand at. Gcse maths did shock me at its level compared to the gce o-level of my era( as in gce was harder)

[mercalia]

Like most others I took Maths O-level and got a good grade pass.
It was all about factorisation and integrated something or others, which I've never needed since.
It was all learnt parrot fashion and logic never came into it.

For instance, if there were four of us say in a cafe and there were three cakes to share out, I always worked out portions by halving the number three, which I'd worked out to be one and a half and then halved that, knowing it to be three quarters.

It was many years later when I was watching Johnny Ball on the TV with my 6 year old son, that I realised you just put 3 over 4 (as a fraction) to work it out simply

Thankfully, I think they teach maths these days relating to much more practical situations.

but that is at best a metaphor and dont mean anything as numbers are not something you can put over or under anything - that is not the way to teach fractions and sharing

[NUKe]

Current Gcse revision guides for basics. Then if you want to take it further Stroud Engineering maths is a text that's great for bringing undergrads up to speed, that is if it is still in print.

[Vorpal]

What sort of things are you interested in?

Geometry or analytic geometry? Using it for physics or chemistry? calculating taxes & interest rates? probabilities?

Or just a general refresher?

You could try: Secrets of Mental Math


It's written by a professor in the USA. It about how to think about things mathematically, but there are some fun mental maths tricks in it, too.

[661-Pete]

There's 'maths' and there's 'maths'... In other words, there are many different types of maths. A lot depends on what your interests are - for example do you want to be more numerate in the course of your daily life? Are you interested in it as a form of entertainment? Brain-cell fodder?

In terms of practical usage and relevance to daily life, the fields of maths that are useful, and that you probably won't yet have delved into, too deeply, are Calculus, and Statistics. If you're into electronics, you'd certainly do well to brush up on Complex Numbers. Other things, maybe, can wait: assuming you don't plan to immediately delve into, say, cryptography!

[old_windbag]

Then if you want to take it further Stroud Engineering maths is a text that's great for bringing undergrads up to speed

I'm sitting 1ft away from one right now. I have the basic and advanced editions, for myself they are bookshelf references and they do rely on you understanding much of what is contained but have good worked examples and separate questions with answers. It seems they are on 6th edition mine is 3rd. An epic book series.

[rmurphy195]

Anyone any ideas or recommendations for a starting point/textbook to pick up so I can see if my passing interest is just that (passing!)?

Next thing you know you'll be writing spreadsheets to calculate gear inches and spoke lengths .

Have the gear inches in XL, not tried spoke lengths yet!

[Daniel Fox]

Stroud's books were great for me in the mid 80's studying engineering at Uni.