xkcd

by **MindTheGap** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 11:41 pm UTC

If you really enjoy math, there is a great site with forums and online classes.

http://www.mathlinks.ro

Its absolutely amazing. They have a working copy of LaTeX that you can use in your posts on the forum.

Magistrate edit: This thread is now sticky, and is for people to post whatever math-related online resources they find most useful.

by **SimonM** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 7:35 am UTC

I concur

by **thoughtfully** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 12:11 pm UTC

My favorite is MathWorld, formerly Eric's Treasure Trove of Mathematics, until some real arseholes at CRC publishing let their lawyers loose on him. Stephen Wolfram is no saint, but he gets serious awesome points for saving this site.

The coolest one I've come across lately is The Art of Problem Solving. It was started by a couple of Math Olympiad contestents, and focuses on resources for budding math geniuses. They also have books they are trying to sell

But, the really mind blowing part of the site is their gallery of animated geometric proofs. Yes, you've seen the geometric proof of the Pythagorean Theorem, but they also have the Law of Cosines!

There's also some good LaTeX resources (on the main site and the wiki)

by **Quan** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 1:51 pm UTC

That's quite cool.

In terms of forum help, I almost always find myself on the maths subsection of http://www.physicsforums.com/ - again it has integrated TeX in to the forum, so really easy to write up problems you may have.

by **SimonM** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 4:29 pm UTC

thoughtfully wrote:My favorite is MathWorld, formerly Eric's Treasure Trove of Mathematics, until some real arseholes at CRC publishing let their lawyers loose on him. Stephen Wolfram is no saint, but he gets serious awesome points for saving this site.

The coolest one I've come across lately is The Art of Problem Solving. It was started by a couple of Math Olympiad contestents, and focuses on resources for budding math geniuses. They also have books they are trying to sell

But, the really mind blowing part of the site is their gallery of animated geometric proofs. Yes, you've seen the geometric proof of the Pythagorean Theorem, but they also have the Law of Cosines!

There's also some good LaTeX resources (on the main site and the wiki)

Art of Problem Solving is linked to mathlinks

by **thoughtfully** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 5:22 pm UTC

SimonM wrote:Art of Problem Solving is linked to mathlinks

I noticed that after I posted. More then that, mathlinks seems to be a derivitive/spin-off of AoPS.

GMTA, eh?

by **SimonM** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 5:47 pm UTC

thoughtfully wrote:
SimonM wrote:Art of Problem Solving is linked to mathlinks

I noticed that after I posted. More then that, mathlinks seems to be a derivitive/spin-off of AoPS.

GMTA, eh?

GMTA? And I think I should probably expand on "I concur", it is an absolutely fantastic forum, which despite much of it going over my head, is a great place to see where maths does get interesting

by **thoughtfully** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 8:37 pm UTC

SimonM wrote:
thoughtfully wrote:
SimonM wrote:Art of Problem Solving is linked to mathlinks

I noticed that after I posted. More then that, mathlinks seems to be a derivitive/spin-off of AoPS.

GMTA, eh?

GMTA? And I think I should probably expand on "I concur", it is an absolutely fantastic forum, which despite much of it going over my head, is a great place to see where maths does get interesting

<snarky>C'mon. If I can figure out QFT, you guys can do GMTA. No, it hasn't got anything whatsoever to do with a certain video game that everybody loves to hate.</snarky>

by **thoughtfully** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 8:44 pm UTC

Oh, excellent. It stands for "Genetically Modified Total Annihilation", which so fits with that thread about execution via raptor pit that I was just reading. Google so rocks!

Oh, wait. No, I lied.

by **gmalivuk** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 9:08 pm UTC

Now that this thread has been stickied, let's try to keep discussion on the topic of math-related websites.

by **MindTheGap** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 11:50 pm UTC

Just to clear things up, mathlinks is Art of Problem Solving.

by **LoopQuantumGravity** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 5:27 am UTC

http://planetmath.org/
and the Springer Encyclopedia of Math, http://eom.springer.de/default.htm
are both pretty good, too.

by **ShadowLurker** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 6:14 am UTC

To be completely correct, mathlinks and artofproblemsolving merged a few years ago: at first AoPS was for US and mathlinks was for Romania.

by **edanite** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 8:12 pm UTC

Any time I find an integral that I can't solve using standard trickses or by referring to my CRC Mathematical Tables (24th ed), I head on over to The Integrator, also a Wolfram site.

by **CodeLabMaster** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 2:06 am UTC

http://www.maths.mq.edu.au/~wchen/ln.html

College undergrad level notes in a pdf form. Rigorous enough for good coverage, but enough examples and explanations for good understanding.

by **Zohar** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 1:52 pm UTC

I used to go to The Integrator but these days I use QuickMath a lot more (well, I don't need it as much...). It has a lot more options, too.

by **jestingrabbit** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 4:31 pm UTC

0EIS is the place to go to solve those irritating "what is the next number in this sequnce?" type puzzles.

by **crazyjimbo** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 11:14 pm UTC

This isn't really of the same calibre as some of the resources posted here, but I have written up some notes for myself that I figure I might as well share in case they can be useful to someone else. They are all at http://www.mathpedia.info .

The software behind the site itself is the result of me recently learning Ruby on Rails and quickly putting together something to help me organise my LaTeX documents. It turned out to be very useful so I added some more functionality to make it more wiki-esque, with users and revisions and what-not. I'm quite happy with the result and I am still developing it so let me know what you think.

Content wise, as I mentioned, it's mostly just what I've been bothered to write, and in many places that isn't much. I would encourage anyone who feels that they can contribute and material to do so as I would love to see this become useful to more than just me.

by **Mathmagic** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 5:36 pm UTC

Some useful math sites I've used recently:

SOS Math - A good resource that explains the quick and easy methods for various techniques. Differential equations, linear algebra, and the such.

Paul's Online Math Notes - A teacher that has posted notes on various calculus and algebra topics. A better "learning" resource than SOS Math.

by **ks_physicist** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 8:16 pm UTC

Always looking for more ways to use Mathematics as an acceptable substitute for a pan-galactic gargle blaster.

by **WhyBother** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 6:26 am UTC

I'm probably a little behind the times on this, but I just found out Abramowitz and Stegun's Handbook of Mathematical Functions is available for free online: http://www.math.sfu.ca/~cbm/aands/

Not the most broad of mathematical sites, but still useful.

by **Nullcline** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 12:39 am UTC

This guy has basically just rounded up links for several free online textbooks. Absolutely wonderful page.

http://www.geocities.com/alex_stef/mylist.html

by **aetherson** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 8:17 pm UTC

where on that forum would information be listed about "discrete math"? you know, the bane of every CS student?
i'm trying to find some online tutorials prior to my upcoming class. I need the refresher as I haven't looked at the stuff since undergrad...

by **demute** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 3:36 pm UTC

Here is my collection of math documents. it's a total of around 5000 pages.
http://aiwendil.mine.nu/geodesic/math

cheers

by **syntaxers** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 6:13 am UTC

Here's a really useful site for math and physics. http://www.mathpages.com/home/index.htm

by **blackeye** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 9:19 am UTC

I know this thread is about web links and not books... but I didn't think it was worth an entirely new topic. Is there a really good book(s) that covers everything from complicated algebra to the really complex stuff? I don't wanna derail the thread or anything so you can pm me links to awesome books or whatnot.
Thanks!

by **Nullcline** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 5:34 am UTC

Paul Roman has a set of two books that go through pretty much all of an undergraduate mathematics major. It hits basic group, ring and field theory, statistics, calculus, real and complex analysis. He does the whole thing using physics notation, too(I've used it for the sole purpose of decoding some notations that physicists use.) I don't remember its name exactly, but it's something along the lines of "Mathematics for Physicists and non-Mathematicians." If I remember correctly, it does skip over some of the easy parts. In the analysis section, it skips the construction of the reals and most of differentiation, but went into a lot of depth with integration and equations. I think it was published in the late 70's. Hope that helps.

by **blackeye** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 6:51 am UTC

thank you good sir! That sounds like just what I am looking for!
Hopefully I can scrounge up enough money to buy it in the next couple of weeks. :lol:

by **Rowandswim** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 12:22 am UTC

Here's one: http://www.fearofphysics.com

Much like the Wikipedia of physics!

by **ks_physicist** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 4:36 pm UTC

Wow, the Paul Roman book is on Amazon (used) for $150+.

Any cheaper sources? Do we need to storm Dover and insist on a reprint?

by **Marbas** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 2:44 am UTC

I don't know why MIT's opencourseware hasn't been linked yet but here it is:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/index.htm

by **jackimurphy** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 5:03 am UTC

Can anyone recommend one of those websites mentioned above (or different ones entirely, if need be) to someone who - to put it delicately - is not so gifted in the mathematics department?

I am terrible at math. Really, truly, terrible. I like to think that I'm not an unintelligent person, but when it comes to math it's like my brain sees the numbers and just stops working. I speak four languages, I have a pretty decent vocabulary, I do well in school, I just fall to pieces when presented with even the most basic of math.

I do not want to be this way anymore. So, if anyone can recommend websites with drills, or tutorials, or something that would serve to make me a little less dumb, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

by **thoughtfully** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 3:30 pm UTC

I'd suggest trying out some puzzles. Soduku is the obvious one, but less overtly mathematical puzzles will still help you. I'd try to stay away from "drills" until you are more comfortable with doing math. You shouldn't force yourself through agonizing fits, if it can possibly be avoided. You need to enjoy the process, or have a psychological commitment that overcomes the difficult aspects, and that's just asking a lot from anyone.

You might also want to try other branches of math. You might have a knack for Euclidean Geometry or the study of symmetries and not realize it. You could use something like this as a way to ease youself into math gradually. Even music can have mathematical properties to delight both the aesthetic and the intellect.

Finally, the other xkcders would storm my mad scientist's lair with torches and pitcforks if I didn't suggest a little programming experimentation. I'm not suggesting anything like Project Euler, at least not for starting out. But play around with graphics or bitwise operations. You can pick up a lot of math through programming.

by **Ended** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 7:18 pm UTC

I stumbled across here the other night: http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~r-ash/ (some useful online books).

by **errrr** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 2:34 pm UTC

MindTheGap wrote:http://www.mathlinks.ro

Heh, look at this thread:
http://www.mathlinks.ro/viewtopic.php?t=143044

admin wrote:Banning comes as a consequence for mocking an Administrator

Note that the "mocking" was very mild. I'll stay far away from that place.

by **Cleverbeans** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 1:19 pm UTC

The MIT OpenCourseWare site has some excellent resources for math.

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/index.htm

by **mudge** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 1:58 am UTC

errrr wrote:
MindTheGap wrote:http://www.mathlinks.ro

Heh, look at this thread:
http://www.mathlinks.ro/viewtopic.php?t=143044

admin wrote:Banning comes as a consequence for mocking an Administrator

Note that the "mocking" was very mild. I'll stay far away from that place.

Wow. Seconded.

by **jtin** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 4:18 am UTC

Hope it's okay to promote this here. It's mathy...

I got tired of trying to type math to peole in IM, and made http://mathurl.com/.

It basically turns a LaTeX expression into a short url like http://mathurl.com/?5hpova. (Unfortunately LaTeX doesn't contain a symbol for "girl"...)

You can also use it for embedding: $img=68klk5$

by **Mathmagic** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 4:31 am UTC

Bookmarked! Thanks for the link. It should make my late-night IM homework conversations a little less painstaking.

EDIT: By the way, this probably could have been posted in the Math Websites sticky at the top of this forum.

by **antonfire** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 4:40 am UTC

Also, for embedding, these fora actually have the "imath" and "math" tags now.

Code: Select all: [math]\zeta(s) = \sum_{n=1}^{\infty} \frac{1}{n^s}[/math]

\zeta(s) = \sum_{n=1}^{\infty} \frac{1}{n^s}

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