Learning (the basics of) calculus online?

[usernamenumber]

So, in the Coursera course I'm taking, there is a bit in one of the lectures where the instructor basically says

"""
Ok, so dealing with this problem requires some fancy math. If you're not familiar with how to deal with this kind of problem, you have two options:

1) Take a discrete mathematics course.

2) Do it the easy way! You can just convert these problems to integrals and solve them with calculus! Ta da!!
"""

*sigh*. This from a class that only requires "some math".

Ok, confession time: I've been in IT for well over a decade. I hang out with MIT folk without completely failing to fit in. And yet, the last time I touched calculus was when I failed it in 1997. This is (in part) why I consider myself an "IT person", but not a computer scientist.

BUT. In 1997 I was a lot less together than I am now, and I'm a little curious as to whether I could tackle it better now.

I know at least a few people out there are newfangled alt-ed types and/or mathy types, so question:

If I decided to, just for kicks, take another stab at integrals and see if I could get it, is there some interactive or otherwise novel ed 2.0 thing out there online that you'd recommend I look at, or is this one of those things were we ultimately come back to "suck it up and read a textbook"?

Comments

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

You *might* be happier with dealing with the problem as discreet math rather than as calculus - I know that I would be.

What's the problem like? Do you want to borrow a discreet math textbook?

[marius23.livejournal.com]

You could try taking a look at Khan Academy: http://www.khanacademy.org/

[real-green-tea.livejournal.com]

This is actually an excellent resource which I will second. Barring working with an actual (in-person) tutor, this is the best way that you will be able to absorb the material.

Cursory search says http://code.google.com/p/khanacademy/issues/detail?id=188
this should provide you with an overview of what is/isn't there.

[laurion]

Yup, that's what I was going to suggest. They started out in math, and are still strong there.

[archangelwells.livejournal.com]

My mom says she doesn't know anything about online courses or anything, but if you decide to go the text book route, she's happy to act as "AAAAA I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS" resource. (She tutors/teaches this for a living. She also probably has text book recommendations, if you need them.)

[archangelwells.livejournal.com]

Also, in the realm of calculus and discreet math, it turns out I have a calculus book and a discreet math book I can give you. (I'll be back in town Tuesday, and can give you them anytime after that, if you want.

[dot_fennel]

I came very close to failing calculus and still got a math degree by staying as far away from it as possible. Er, which is to say, if you go with option 1, I'm happy to be a resource.

[turtletoturtle]

Yeah, I agree that you might find discrete math more accessible. As someone who scraped by with a C+ in calc (mostly because I never learned how to do graph transforms properly), I found discrete math was a lot more interesting.

My dad once said he read a general-audience book called "A Tour of the Calculus" that helped him understand calculus concepts on a real-world level, but I haven't read it so that's not a personal recommendation.

[hanashibeta.livejournal.com]

I have no "ed 2.0" recommendations, but I can at least say that I failed calculus in 1999 (just before switching to linguistics), then totally aced it nearly effortlessly when I started over years later at a community college and wasn't so overwhelmed and distracted. My experience may not be a reliable indicator of what you could expect in trying to tackle calculus again, but maybe it'll encourage optimism. If you do go the "suck it up and read a textbook" route, this one has the instructor's manual readily available, so you won't have to constantly be wondering if you're really doing things correctly (something that's driven me slightly mad during most of my attempts at self-learning).

If there's a discrete math way to solve the problems, though, forget calculus. Discrete math is infinitely more fun.

[rubicantoto.livejournal.com]

I don't entirely agree with you.

Yes, Discrete Math is more fun.

Saying it's infinitely more fun makes it sound like there's some g such that fun(discrete math) = g( fun(calculus) ), which implies that there is a function relating how fun discrete math is to how fun calculus is.

The amount of fun posed by discrete math is provably uncountable.

Meanwhile, fun(calculus) only converges on 2 over infinite iteration due to some bullshit trickery with limits that nobody really believes.

There clearly is no such g.

It's a pretty simple Per Aspera Ad Absurdum proof, I'm surprised you didn't see it before you clicked 'Post'.

[shinyquill.livejournal.com]

As someone else who is in that coursera course, discrete math is orders of magnitude more comprehensible and less painful than calculus. RPI splits calc for computer science majors into calc one and calc two. I managed to pass one by the skin of my teeth, and then I failed calc two either twice or three times (I don't remember).

I'm going to check out some of these resources, because I'd really like to have a degree at some point and maybe learning math in a less hostile space would be less hellish.

[rubicantoto.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you should go with Calculus for the Practical Man--it's how Richard Feynman taught himself!

(Mostly a joke--surely a more modern book would do a better job of talking about modern uses of calculus, and otherwise be more readable for a modern audience)

[anthropicmoose.livejournal.com]

What I planned to say has already been said a few different ways now, but +1 to struggling with calculus and finding discrete math a lot more interesting and intuitive. (I also have yet to actually use any serious calculus in my programming, and I think the last time it mattered to me CS-wise was related to Big-O notation. Graph theory? Far more applicable.)

[ultimatepsi.livejournal.com]

In my opinion, Khan Academy for math is basically just the lecture part of a traditional course, which is useful, but isn't particularly interactive. I haven't seen a really interactive *course* in either calculus or discreet math, but here are some nice interactive pieces to play with:

Calculus grapher
Math tools, a collection of interactive apps
Wolfram Demos

I am also happy to get together with you to either help with the current problem or to help you plot a course of study. I could use the practice teaching advanced math, and keeping those skills in shape.