I've found it's hard to teach myself math without an objective. If I don't have a specific question I'm trying to answer, my eyes just start to skip over equations, trying to get to the "good part". Pretty soon I've left the boring parts I know far behind. I've also skipped the less boring parts that i sorta know, and now I'm skipping forward even faster because I only understand half of what I'm reading. I wind up skimming the whole book, but not really absorbing much of it. I think I'd do better if I was planning on discussing what I'm reading with others.
So here's my idea: a math club. We pick a book, and we read it together. Every (week | two weeks | month) we read the next chapter in the book, and then we meet up and discuss it. Anything we can't figure out on our own, we discuss with the other members of the math club until we get it. The impending deadline of having to actually explain the material to other humans servs to focus and motive the reading.
Anybody interested?
Possible topics:
- Probability Theory.
- Lecture Notes on the Curry Howard Isomorphism
- Proof Theory: The First Step into Impredicativity
- The Geometry of Ordinary Variational Equations
- or anything else. math is fun!
EDIT: Benito made a facebook group so we can get organized and do this! see: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/h5y/lw_study_group_facebook_page/
How about everyone here who is at High School age message me, and that will be our group. I feel like we would be able to work better with people who were closer in age.
Of course, once you get older it doesn't matter as much, I think, but when your education is still in progress, we might have to do more background research.
P.S. I'm 14, and I would say that I'm turning 15 in 2 months but that sounds even more childish than just leaving it at "I'm 14". In any case, I think I'm capable enough of compiling a list, and what comes after will come after.