- #1
David Carroll
- 181
- 13
Greetings. I just bought a textbook and I have no idea what it is about. A little explanation is in order:
One of my goals in life has been to obtain a degree in mathematics. Unfortunately, I have made very poor life choices that have made this goal practically unachievable, which I won't detail but if I say one of those choices was to spend student loans to support a heroin addiction, you get the basic idea...but what has been has been. I cannot change the past nor its consequences.
Nevertheless, I have made the decision to obtain the epistemological equivalent of a degree in mathematics by perusing the course listings for the math department of the University of Michigan, buying the associated textbooks, and learning the subjects by myself. I have made it through Calculus I, II, and III and I am in the middle of Linear Algebra. I have a textbook for "Boundary Value Problems and Differential Equations" that awaits me after I am done with Linear Algebra.
I noticed that the next suggested course after differential equations was called by the U of M "Analysis". I went ahead and bought its first associated textbook "Analysis on Manifolds" by Munkres and it is in a facility somewhere, waiting to reach me via U.S. Postal Service and by courtesy of amazon.com
The difference between this course and the others was that if someone were to ask me, before I ever learned any of this stuff, "What is Calculus? What is Linear Algebra? What are differential equations?", I could at least give a rough, vague outline of what they were. I just could not perform any calculations of what I just described...until now.
Not so with this course known as "Analysis".
So out with the obvious question, "What on Earth IS analysis and what IS a manifold?"
One of my goals in life has been to obtain a degree in mathematics. Unfortunately, I have made very poor life choices that have made this goal practically unachievable, which I won't detail but if I say one of those choices was to spend student loans to support a heroin addiction, you get the basic idea...but what has been has been. I cannot change the past nor its consequences.
Nevertheless, I have made the decision to obtain the epistemological equivalent of a degree in mathematics by perusing the course listings for the math department of the University of Michigan, buying the associated textbooks, and learning the subjects by myself. I have made it through Calculus I, II, and III and I am in the middle of Linear Algebra. I have a textbook for "Boundary Value Problems and Differential Equations" that awaits me after I am done with Linear Algebra.
I noticed that the next suggested course after differential equations was called by the U of M "Analysis". I went ahead and bought its first associated textbook "Analysis on Manifolds" by Munkres and it is in a facility somewhere, waiting to reach me via U.S. Postal Service and by courtesy of amazon.com
The difference between this course and the others was that if someone were to ask me, before I ever learned any of this stuff, "What is Calculus? What is Linear Algebra? What are differential equations?", I could at least give a rough, vague outline of what they were. I just could not perform any calculations of what I just described...until now.
Not so with this course known as "Analysis".
So out with the obvious question, "What on Earth IS analysis and what IS a manifold?"