My weblog ELECTRON BLUE, which concentrated on science and mathematics, ran from 2004-2008. It is no longer being updated. My current blog, which is more art-related, is here.
Sat, 15 Mar, 2008
Hundreds of problems inside
I have not talked very much about math in this Electron recently, but that doesn't mean I am not doing it. I needed to go back to trigonometry so I've been working with the "For Dummies" reference and workbook. (The French translation of the "Dummies" titles, "Pour les nuls," somehow sounds more sophisticated.) The bright yellow and black workbook cheerfully promises me "Hundreds of problems inside." Usually, hundreds of problems is not a good thing, but here at least they can be solved. I sometimes do a problem or two before I go to sleep, just to feel as though I have solved something that day.
So far I have been working with very simple things from the junior high school repertoire, problems about graphs and lines and slopes which still make sense from a calculus perspective. Perhaps a gung-ho mathman would think that I have regressed and lost a big chunk of IQ points for doing the simple stuff over again, but this is something I never quite master. I feel that I will always need to do the very elementary things once in a while to get back some skill before returning to the more difficult advanced material. And I am not fooling myself into thinking that I am really "advanced."
Another thing which I really like about the "Trigonometry for Dummies" workbook is that it gives you space right there on the page to work the problem out. I don't need to strew math-written papers all over my studio or keep a big sheaf of something covered with eraser leavings. No one else is going to use this book, so I can write in it all I want. It's a place of order and serenity, all self-contained, just for me, always patient no matter what the time or place, and, unlike real life, furnished with the right answers.
Posted at 4:10 am | link