How to learn Mathematical Notation

Question

Do you have any recommendations of books or websites that would teach me mathematical notation. As a developer I work on a wide range of projects from .NET/SQL Server stuff through to Flash games and I often find myself referring to articles on the internet for guidance. Many of the articles contain mathematical formula, and unless they are accompanied by "plain English" explanations I usually struggle to convert the formula into code.

I have a degree in Interactive Multimedia, and so I have had no formal higher math education, however, I don't find math to be too taxing to figure out.

Hopefully by learning this notation I will be able to further my knowledge by actually being able to get stuck into more of it.

Please don't suggest I go back to school and do a higher math course as, while i know this would be the best bet, it simply isn't an option. Other than that, any and all suggesstions are welcome.

Cheers

Update,

Here are a few types of thing that I program most often. I'm not sure what areas of math these cover.

• 2d and 3d collision detection
• Reporting utilities for data collection applications (registration forms, surveys, etc.)
• 2d and 3d vector math, mainly based around games
• Colour manipulation (programmatically fading from one colour to the next, adding and subtracting colours, making colours lighter / darker on the fly)

Hope this helps add a bit of context.

Answer 1

You can find a boat load of free math books here: http://www.e-booksdirectory.com/mathematics.php

If you're looking for just a table of symbols and what they mean, Wikipedia has a nice list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_mathematical_symbols

Answer 2

On-line Mathematics Dictionary

mathworld.wolfram

Books

The HarperCollins Dictionary of Mathematics

Simon Singh has a great list of books at his site.

Your updated question prompts me to mention Gilbert Strang's free, online Linear Algebra video lectures. These are reasonably slow but very thorough.

Answer 3

A good book with explanations of notation is Vector Calculus, Linear Algebra, and Differential Forms: A Unified Approach.

Answer 4

Though this is not exactly what you are looking for, the Princeton Companion to Mathematics has a sample chapter on The Language and Grammar of Mathematics. It explains not so much formulas but the formal use of the English language.

Answer 5

Good answers already.

You should expect math notation to be hard, because it packs a lot of meaning into very few symbols, so you have to slow down and take it one equation at a time, without any skimming. And usually you have to read a book or article on the general subject.

I knew math professors who said that when they tackled unfamiliar work they had to get some coffee, slow way down, and parse each statement and each equation until they understood it.

I have to use quite a bit of math in my daily work, but it mostly all boils down to high school algebra and trig, plus basic differential calculus, and really basic differential equations and linear algebra. Most people only need the high-school stuff.

Best of luck.

Answer 6

The main thing you will need to understand is the notation of set theory. All your really need is the thinnest book you can find and it will have 90% of what you need.

I remember reading "Naive Set Theory" by Halmos some years ago, after which there was little that I couldn't make sense of. But if that particular book is not an option, head over to any University library pick out an introductory set theory book and that should give you what you need.

Answer 7

It sounds like a lot of your applications are in computer graphics. One of the classic textbooks is Foley and Van Dam; you might consider getting a copy. It may not slow down to explain matrices (see the link I gave for a page on coordinate transforms), but there's enough context there that you can probably do just fine if you either do some basic searches on some of the linear algebra concepts, or check out a linear algebra book from the library. It doesn't sound like you'd benefit a lot from a full "digestion" of a linear algebra course (which goes into eigenvalues, matrix factoring, & other stuff). I'd just take one concept at a time as it comes up. You can learn quite a bit from slow osmosis.