math

July 2, 2007 7:45 PM

Ask Mathfilter: I want some good math sites to read. A math-cetric Metafilter or Cosma's notebooks.

I have been reading The World is Flat and it's scared me into brushing up on the bits of math I missed in highschool. After I dig through the trig and calc notes I have lying around, I'd like to move into areas I'm less familiar with (stats, multivariable calc, diff eq) before I'm forced to learn them in classes.

When I'm browsing Mathworld I feel like it's all baby steps, and Wikipedia's math pages are too dense for me to retain anything. Recommend some web references, intros, faqs, whatever you've got bookmarked. No books, I can't afford them!

posted by tylermoody to education (11 comments total)

Maybe of interest to you, if you haven't seen it yet: Danica McKellar's math site.

From an NPR blurb:
Danica McKellar played Winnie on the TV show The Wonder Years. Later, she made many appearances on The West Wing. But she's also a mathematician who recently proved her own theorem.

The NPR page features an audio interview with her.
posted by The Deej at 8:08 PM on July 2, 2007

G4G4 has a lot of fun puzzles, if you can stand the silly interface.

For a higher level: math games. Actually this site has a lot of interesting stuff, not so elementary, but also not so high up there.

Martin Gardner's books come free in a library near you. They are what math is about, well, for me.

And I have to, have to recommend John Allen Paulos site, even though it might not be exactly what you are looking for, just because he is awesome. And you might just get interested in statistics.
posted by carmina at 8:51 PM on July 2, 2007

Mathworld, though it isn't like Metafilter. Check out their collection of animated GIF files.

Math Mistakes is fun.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 10:06 PM on July 2, 2007

(Sorry; I didn't notice that you already knew about Mathworld.)
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 10:06 PM on July 2, 2007

Um... maybe I'm missing something about that Math Mistakes site... but there doesn't seem to be any content there other than that one image.
posted by vernondalhart at 10:19 PM on July 2, 2007

I guess I didn't check it closely enough. There used to be good stuff there.

Sorry about that. Mods? Deletion, please?
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 11:25 PM on July 2, 2007

Internet Archive has the old site
posted by muteh at 4:20 AM on July 3, 2007

On closer inspection, the old site is still up at http://members.cox.net/mathmistakes/
posted by muteh at 4:22 AM on July 3, 2007

While it doesn't discuss the areas that you mentioned you still might be interested in Ed Pegg's recreational mathematics bloglike site MathPuzzle.com.
posted by yz at 6:04 AM on July 3, 2007

A couple of good statistics sites:
Hyperstat Online, a site with tutorials and links.
Online Statistics, a multimedia course.

Other math sites:
The Internet Mathematics Library has an extensive set of links
A list of math columns from Mathematical Association of America. Columnists will often discuss mathematical aspects of current events or pop culture.
posted by euphotic at 7:28 AM on July 3, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

Good Math, Bad Math is a blog about math.
The Hundred Greatest Theorems.
posted by euphotic at 7:50 AM on July 3, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]