I
've started studying math again for the first time in a good while. I've missed it. I always liked math, liked how pure it was, how if you just paid attention and set the stones of your foundation correctly, you could get anywhere. Unfortunately, I stalled out in college, mostly as a result of somehow never taking pre-calculus, meaning that when I was faced with Real Calculus (and my own refusal to every ask for help), I quickly fell behind and got some of my lowest grades, well, ever.
I'm interested in learning the math required for some basic engineering applications, so I'm heading back into calculus, and eventually, linear algebra. To this end, I'm working through Richard Courant and Herbert Robbins's "What is Mathematics", which is just a wonderful text. Written orginally in the '40s, it remains lucid and current, while still being challenging. The authors set themselves the goal of making a book on math for serious amateurs, to introduce them to core concepts in a systematic way, that nonetheless demands real effort and contact with the material involved.
I'm very much enjoying taking my time with it, making sure that I've completely understood everything they've laid out before moving forward. I love that the how seriously the authors take the concept of a general education, that must be continued throughout one's life. I'd like to strive to be the sort of educated man that has a broad, but not superficial understanding of a good many topics, and being conversant with math is, I think, a particularly underappreciated aspect of the informed citizen's mind. So far, I've mostly been solidifying things that I already half knew, but genuinely new knowledge is right around the corner, and I'm very excited to sample it.