Basic Math Book for a Programmer

Question

After a decade(s) of writing web applications, I have realized that I have forgot most of my high school (not to mention college) math. Now I would like to try to learn the math all over again, starting from the basics. I mean, really basic stuff. Maybe in some distant future I will need this in order to lend some job in financial industry or something, but for the moment I would like to start learning. If at all possible I would like this to be a single book.

Answer 1

I recommend A Tour of the Calculus as a good—and easy to read—refresher on College level math.

An honestly, for high school level stuff, just get Trig for Dummies.

Answer 2

There are a number of ways you could go with this. For CS, basic usually means Discrete Math. There are a whole lot of textbooks in this, and the subject doesn't really build on other mathematical foundations so it was fairly easy to get into for someone like me who was filling in educational gaps.

Knuths Concrete Mathematics is very nice, but probably more detailed than you want for a first pass. It's an expansion of the math introduction to "Art of Computer Programming (infinite sums, logs, probablility, as well as more advanced things like generating functions).

I also found that after a few years I'd forgotten all my calculus and needed a refresher in that as well. Again, lots of good texts.

Answer 3

There is so much to learn in math ;-)

• A Textbook of Algebra, Vols 1 & 2, Crystal

• Teach Yourself Calculus, Abott & Neill

• Introduction to analytic number theory, Apostol

Answer 4

You might want to read this blog post about math for programmers. It gives a nice overview of what kind of math you can expect to run into depending on what you're coding and provides a few good suggestions

Answer 5

Since you forgot High school also I would start with Algebra then move on to Calculus.

There is a Single book by the name of Calculus: A Computer Algebra Approach which I would recommend. That book covers Algebra and from someone fresh out of college(me) it also covers Calculus 1,2,and 3 and Engineering Math

Edit-

From your comments, you want just the basics in math which can all be covered in a book Precalculus Mathematics in a Nutshell: Geometry, Algebra, Trigonometry

Answer 6

financial ? do not forget statistics for dummies

Answer 7

http://projecteuler.net/, I know it is not a book.

But maybe it is easier to recollect the math, if you have a problem at hand to solve.

Answer 8

There's always the standard college text books

• Stewart Calculus
• Thomas & Finney's Calc book

Answer 9

If you're looking for basic math, I'd start with a review of standardized test concepts. That'll cover your algebra, geometry, trig, systems of equations, etc., and it's usually in a format that's easy to digest.

I liked this Cliff Notes book when I was studying for the GRE. It's not test-specific, so it just has the math (no test strategy sections), so it might fit your needs well.

Answer 10

Apress Applied Mathematics for Database Professionals - Targeted for database types, but the concepts are widely applicable.

O'Reilly Statistics in a Nutshell - A correct understanding of statisics not only aids in the programming of applications, but helps the programmer analyze and make decisions about code, performance, estimations.

Answer 11

numbers theory books are recommended.

Answer 12

I have the same question, tried and came across two books at Amazon which look very relevant, though no one here mentioned them.

Math Refresher for Scientists and Engineers (by John R. Fanchi)

Just-In-Time Math for Engineers (by Archibald L. Fripp, Jon B. Fripp and Michael L. Fripp)

Answer 13

Whatever other math books you buy, get "How to Solve it", by George Polya. This is a classic which you'll find on the bookshelves of many practicing mathematicians, but which is accessible to anyone with a high school math background. It is the most valuable book about problem solving that I have ever read, and its benefits will carry over beyond just your math.

Answer 14

Principles of Mathematical Analysis, by Walter Rudin. 'Nuff said.

amazon.com

Answer 15

This may be one step up from high school (depending on the school), but the area of mathematics that has been most useful to me is without doubt linear algebra. It is necessary in order to understand many, many algorithm related to index structures, information retrieval, data mining, and machine learning.

There may be other, better books, but Elementary linear algebra by C.H. Edwards, Jr. and David E. Penney is at least OK.

When I took linear algebra in college (it was required), it was taught by a math professor. He started the first lecture with the following pep talk: "A committee has decided that all the engineering students have to take the same mathematics courses. Personally, I think that's a waste of time, because you will most likely never have a use for what you'll learn in this class. Oh well, let's begin." As you can imagine, I didn't study very hard … and then I had to learn it all just a couple of years later, when I needed to understand algorithms that rely on it.

Answer 16

I always go back to this one for references

Standard Mathematical Tables and Formulae

They're at the 30th + edition of this book. It covers a lot of subjects but not to deeply.