First Class

But first: my Mom passed away on Tuesday, August 30, two days before her 90th birthday.

One of my immediate thoughts was that there would be no more of the waffling over whether I was going to be able to hack Multivariable Calculus. No: I would do it, and do it well. I would do this because that is what she would have wanted me to do.

I'd been waffling, you see, partly because of her health -- which had been precarious for some time -- and partly because my summer review had gotten quite ... behind what I had anticipated. I didn't cover nearly the material I had hoped to cover.

So last night was the first class. I sat up front, determined.

The class is half high school students!

I still haven't figured out how to enter math in this interface, or I'd tell a bit about what we covered.

Nice Morning

Rain. Cool.

Riemann sums and definite integrals this morning.

Sigh!

A Small Crystallization

This morning I seem to have experienced something of a breakthrough: I'd been beating my head against some problems in finding antiderivatives (which turned out to be fairly simple). The next section in Thomas / Finney had to do with differential equations.

My understanding of diffy Qs on my last pass through calculus was, well, kinda spotty. Or shaky. Or murky.

This morning, however, I think I ... got it! The sense of breakthrough was fairly palpable. Very exciting. I proceeded to doing more problems, and then more.

It is important for me to mark and remember these moments, because they tend to get overwhelmed by the moments where I just feel, well, overwhelmed.

I have been posting some over at the study / homework help section of physicsforums.com. One can nicely format math on that board by putting it between [itex][/itex] tags. I sure wish that worked here (perhaps I just haven't found the Blogger equivalent, yet)!

Running Out of Time

I hate to admit it, but my calculus review is going far too slowly. I really need to pick up the pace if I want to at least touch all the topics I'd hoped to before starting Multivariable Calculus on September 1.

This means I have to do fewer problems, which is, er, problematic because I believe it's my problem-solving ability (well, my lack of problem-solving ability) that is keeping me tethered dully to the ground. Navigating fewer problems will mean being able to do fewer things, having a less secure base for learning new stuff, come Fall.

I haven't yet figured out how to do correctly-formatted math in Blogger, either. Just so you know.

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Student

I try to temper my frustration over the fact that I don't seem to be learning as quickly as I'd like with the knowledge that, if I really want to go somewhere in or with this intellectual adventure, it needs to be a life thing and not something that will have a specific end date.

I won't ever be "done" with mathematics or science. I don't even know what that would mean. And so my study has necessarily to be a permanent change in lifestyle, particularly if I want to hold on to what I've learned and not lose it (again).

The Morning's Issues

This morning I ran into an issue while working on "related rates" problems. Well, two issues, really.

The first was that I found I had a poor understanding of how to differentiate equations with respect to a variable (time, in these cases) that was not part of the equation itself. I found a clear explanation of what I was missing in the book How To Ace Calculus: The Streetwise Guide which, despite the title, is really a good book.

Example(s) forthcoming (see below).

Second, I discovered that I did not know how to extend the product rule to more than two functions. That is, I did not know how to differentiate

y = f(x) * g(x) * h(x)

Unless I missed it, Thomas/Finney does not cover this until later in the same exercise set. This is disconcerting because overall I am finding this text to be pretty good.

My gripe with this is double: 1) covering something after it is needed, and 2) covering it in an exercise set. Suppose you were not assigned or otherwise don't do that exercise? I guess you get to look it up, like I did.

Once I started to think about posting, I realized I did not know how to properly format mathematical equations in Blogger. It turns out that this is ... an issue. There are ways to do it, certainly, but it looks as though it will require some larnin'.

MathML might be the easiest way to do this. I will be trying it out.

... zzzZZZZzzzzz ....

I want to find a way to make this blog less boring, while sticking to its intended focus.

For now, even though I dislike self-referential posts, I must acknowledge that it is indeed pretty boring. And I don't think math or science are boring -- not at all.

Note to self: more sparkles.

'Nother note to self: don't forget the science.