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Comment by pault | Hacker News Reader

I've been trying to develop my maths skills beyond the high school level I was last formally educated at. My problem is, that was 20 years ago, and I've forgotten a lot of the fundamentals, but every time I try to slog through Khan Academy I get bogged down in what would be many, many months of review to get to the undergraduate level. Can anyone recommend materials that contain a high level overview of those rules and concepts that are taught at the pre-calculus level, so I can jog my memory without endless manual calculation? Linear algebra and statistics are mainly what I'm interested in learning.

Edit: This book looks like a good candidate. :)

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Start with Strang's MIT OCW Linear Algebra course: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06-linear-algebra...

You really only need to know arithmetic to get started.

Use Anki to create flash-cards so that you learn faster and don't forget.

https://apps.ankiweb.net/

Also, manual calculation is fundamentally how you learn mathematics. Following along is a first step, but is not good enough to learn the material. You need to do the calculations and run into problems, so you can re-create the knowledge in your brain.

EDIT> Take Coursera's Learning How to Learn Course. It sounds flaky, but will accelerate all of your other learning, and help with procrastination as well.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

I'm in the same situation (I literally had to start with "what is a factor again?") and I've found just doing a little every morning works. It's slow but learning one or two concepts a day avoids frustration. Selby's Practical Algebra was good and then worked my way through Schaum's Precalculus book, supplemented by stuff on the web.

If you not familiar with Professor Leonard check out his playlists. I like his teaching style more than Khan.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoHhuummRZaIVX7bD4t2czg

Fror a high-level overview of linear algebra, 3Blue1Brown's youtube series I cannot recommend highly enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjBOesZCoqc&list=PLZHQObOWTQ...

For stats, I found the Stats for Dummies and Statistics in a Nutshell were great resources to refresh and review.

It's easier to relearn some of this stuff when you know what you don't know!

Lang's _basic mathematics_

Anyone who recommends Lang as a learning resource should burn in their version of hell.

Really? I've used it before for others who found it useful. That's the thing about math, lots of options/styles. Just look at Spivak vs Apostol for Calc. Do you have a suggestion for him?

Lang's Algebra book before revisions contained famously difficult exercises https://mathoverflow.net/a/10899 but I liked Basic Mathematics even if it's out of print (expensive) and full of errata issues.

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