How do I get better at math?

Read conceptual and historical mathematical books that divulge into the concepts of mathematics and thinking (motivation) behind famous mathematicians. It gives you a aptitude, way of thinking, and love of mathematics that doing just problems cannot do. It makes it easy to understand and appreciate the beauty of math.

got any recommendations?

you're just a guy, millennial

Gorilla post on Veeky Forums

You don't. Mathematical ability is completely genetic.

>want to learn calculus
>Veeky Forums official calculus books is spivak
>download it
>start reading chapter 1
>algebra
>"okay, its not hard to understand"
>exercises
>"how the fuck I do that?"

feels bad man

Spivak's book is for rigor fanciers.
Try something easier such as Stewart's Calculus.

Newton famously would re-read books, sometimes the same line on a page over and over until he had "by degrees he made himself master of the whole".

There's a story of him somewhere rereading a line in one of Descartes book something like 50 times until he understood it.

I was thinking the exact same thing yesterday. Also the lack of a solution book to compare my answers really demotivates me to study that book.

But Spivak has a solution book.
In my opinion struggling to solve a problem is what's studying all about.
It's very easy to rely on the solution manual and feel you've learned something.
Just time yourself.
Like 1 hour per problem.

Read the forward here about Spivak's Calculus
math.uga.edu/~pete/2400full.pdf

Many of the problems are truly difficult and he leaves a lot of things as an exercise to the reader. The problems actually get easier as the book goes on for some reason.

You also need some kind of 'Intro to Mathematical Reasoning' book first before trying Spivak people.vcu.edu/~rhammack/BookOfProof/ (free)

Bump for this. Any picks, sci?

This seems like something that would interest me. I don't want to read a book that has problems I won't be able to solve. Thanks m8 I'll give Stewart's a try.

Mathematics: Its Content, Methods and Meaning, by M. A. Lavrent’ev, A. D. Aleksandrov, A. N. Kolmogorov. It's an amazing book which gives a mathematical (but not rigorous in the sense of proofs etc.) overview of most of mathematics and history.

Being Russians they're also based, everytime they mention an Arab name as a historical reference they also point out the mathmatician wasn't actually Arab, just they were conquered people who had assumed Islamic names by force lol.

Princeton University of course has this gigantic book on mathematics as well including it's history press.princeton.edu/titles/8350.html

That's how it feels when you're not familiar with math books that aren't just a bunch of exercises in simple calculation.

The important thing to remember is that it's not impossible, and everyone who's ever done math has felt as bad as you do right now. The key is to use that shitty feeling as fuel to better yourself.

Thanks user!

any recommendations of material regarding exercises in combinatorics? I really wanna train it but I don't have any more material

Combinatorial Problems and Exercises by Laszlo Lovasz.

Just kidding. Why don't you start with problems on your textbook?

all solved... the textbook doesn't have that many

too low level

doesn't even cover PDEs and that's whats kicking my ass right now. feel like i should just quit at this point desu

Just bought this book, I'm not a math major but I'm well aware of how rigorously the russians do math. I really hope this will help me appreciate math more.

Oh, an exemplary student.
Since you have solved them all, I assume it's a math contest book?

nah not really just a really shallow one, it covers more topics. just wanted to know more (good) textbooks on it that had plenty of exercises

Check your library?
Incidentally, how did you find time to finish a the book? I couldn't imagine myself ever finish all exercises of the book.

I haven't done much math outside of rudimentary problems since highschool which was around 10 years ago. How hard would it be for me to start learning calculus? Or would it be wiser to start with something easier?

He means do the opposite of that

is gelfand books good for calculus preparation?

Gelfand's books are good for gaining USEFUL insight into algebra, functions, and trig.
However, you should also read 'Basic Mathematics' by Serge Lang, but skip chapter 6 and just skim Stewart's Precalculus.
This way, you will definitely be ready for calculus and beyond.

It was just a joke.
Doesn't mean anything.

Try solving quadratic equations.

It would be wiser to review algebra, functions and trig first.
Just some posts below yours, there is a good one with book recommendations for these subjects

Try this to get better:

Gilbert Strang explains what Calculus is:
ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-18-005-highlights-of-calculus-spring-2010/

This book covers elementary math and explains it all at a high level so you can put it all together and introduces advanced mathematics (use libgen.io to get it) press.princeton.edu/titles/10697.html

You need to learn how to think like a mathematician
cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521597188

You need a strategy for how to properly define and solve a problem
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Solve_It

Learn how PhDs work on advanced problems
quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-understand-advanced-mathematics/answers/873950

Expose yourself to well crafted proofs and learn how to do them yourself, this is why people continually recommend difficult texts like Spivak's Calculus, Apostol's Mathematical Analysis, Baby Rudin, Advanced Calculus by Sternberg, Halmo's books, Aluffi's books, ect. You only learn by doing and getting better at it. Read the forward here 'Spivak and Me' math.uga.edu/~pete/2400full.pdf and try the text.

what is the best collection of books to learn from sets and functions to complex numbers and basic calculus?

Lang's Basic Mathematic is good, doesn't cover up all this shit

I always thought I was dumb because I did that.

Its like reading Halmos Naive Set Theory and definitely can get lost easily in the notation req careful rereading.

There's quite a few gelfands. Which ones would you suggest?

literally practice. its like playing an instrument, theroy is important but practice is more

>Do problems.
Simple and accurate, but people don't understand what that does really mean.
How could they? 99.9% of people have never solved ANY (not only math) problem book from cover to cover. They have never spent a year on everyday sacrifices, committing all of their free time after work/school and their days off just to finish some book containing ~2000 problems.
If they really knew what that means, they would definitely reconsider doing it. But I think somehow they subconsciously know how much work that might take, and that's why they ask questions like that on the internet looking for a way around it.

Don't aspire to be Gauss or Newton. They were children of their times. I bet there are at least tens of thousands of people smarter than them living today.

>I bet there are at least tens of thousands of people smarter than them living today
...which will never achieve anything of similar magnitude (if anything at all) as them. Which doesn't really contradict them being smarter than e.g. Gauss if you think about it.

yeah me too, but then when it came to applying that knowledge I would always be superior.
I have a reading speed of at most 3-5 wpm when it comes to something technical. But there are times when you just need to skim over something just to get the gist out of it and its difficult to tell when to read in which way. Depends on what do you need that text for, if it's important, how much of it do you really need and who's the author, or more precisely, what style does he use. E.g. some authors make an extensive use of Ockham razor (most of them poorly though), while other like to repeat themselves over and over or to "signal" certain issues with terse explanations, on which you spend too much time trying to understand them, while they'll be giving you the real ones latter on

You're right but there's also people who genuinely just don't know where to start.

Git gud