A good program to learn math

[Pawelk198604]

I'm looking for a good program to learn mathematics at the level of middle school and high school.

In Poland we have Szkoła podstawowa (Elementary school) Gimnazjium (middle school) and Liceum (High School).

In every school I had problems with math, I just did not have the patience for it.

My mission in Kerbal is mainly made by gut feeling:-) by trial and error.

Could anyone recommend me a good program for math, but a really good one that will teach even the biggest dummy? (like myself:D )

In school, math was not my strong point, I was doing much better with physics (especially experiments)

[Pugspaceprogram]

Well...

If its math that you need mostly for KSP, im sure that you cant go wrong with ksp.olex.biz

Other than this i have no programs for genuine, non-KSP math.

[Pawelk198604]

Well...

If its math that you need mostly for KSP, im sure that you cant go wrong with ksp.olex.biz

Other than this i have no programs for genuine, non-KSP math.

I mean a program that will teach me to to solve algebraic equations etc.

[Omicron314]

I mean a program that will teach me to to solve algebraic equations etc.

In that case, there is an app for smartphones called "Dragon Box 2", I believe. It's a bit expensive, but it helps.

[Cheebsta]

"How many tanks to get to Eve?" is algebra, or can be, like this: distance_to_eve = x * distance_per_tank_of_fuel. So if you know how far it is, and roughly how far each tank goes. You divide distance by distance per tank, and you just solved for "x", the number of tanks you need.

^ This is just an example for:

The main thing is figuring out a way to relate to the material. You can read 100 books and use 1000 programs, but if you don't relate to it somehow it will always be a challenge. I failed, or almost failed, math pretty much every year I was in school. When I got out I got into computer programming and all the sudden numbers made sense... It was like a switch went off once I had a reason to actually care about it. KSP may even be able to do that in some sense, because you always need to know unknown things, even with your trial and error methods, you should be gaining some sense of what is needed. You are solving for x already, just with brute force instead of numbers.

[bivouac]

What you're looking for can be found on Khan Academy. It's completely free and he explains things very well. The videos cover everywhere from basic arithmetic is beginner calculus. Additionally, they supply practice problems so you can test yourself.

If you're looking for more difficult problems, another guy called PatirckJMT goes over those things more complicated than what Khan covers. The site doesn't have any practice problems, but he gives solid examples.

If you're looking for a book to learn the basics of physics, look for a physics book by Resnick and Halliday. The older version from the 60's/70's is superior to the newer more "modern" versions. Reason being, the first edition was written before calculators became a common tool used in mathematics. For this reason, the book explains the concepts in terms that don't look for obscure numbers as answers so much as they do explain concepts.

Once you understand the concepts behind the multiple disciplines of mathematics, the rest is just plugging in. For those things ONLY space related, there are a number of publications regarding celestial mechanics that can be found for free as a PDF. Essentially, celestial mechanics is the physics behind planetary travel. Note, however, that virtually every resource you'll find on the topic is going to assume strong familiarization with the mathematics and basic Newtonian physics.

Links:

https://www.khanacademy.org/

http://patrickjmt.com/

[Nebula]

Look up Khan-academy he has a website that helps you with math from addition and subtraction to calculus, providing in depth and easy to follow instructions and examples

He has a youtube channel and an actual website that will really help you learn and practice what you've learned by providing problem sets

https://www.khanacademy.org/

[Wampbit]

I'm not familiar with the mathematics taught in middle school in Poland, however, for a complete introduction to algebra, and a continuation to more complex mathematics, I would recommend HELM (Helping Engineers Learn Mathematics); it was originally designed to be used during the first year of university when studying engineering disciplines, as a means of teaching those whose knowledge of highschool mathematics was insufficient for university. The format is that of short workbooks; a full explanation is presented, but the majority of the teaching is via worked examples, and as far as I recall full solutions are presented for any questions asked.

The first workbook covers notation fully, and start with very simple algebraic concepts, essentially easing into the abstraction from specific numbers to general variables, showing that you can cancel variables etc. - really the most basic of things. Subsequent workbooks cover algebra, linear algebra (matrices), probability distributions, numerical methods, optimisation problems, calculus etc.

PDFs of the workbooks are publically available from the University of Southampton: http://www.personal.soton.ac.uk/jav/soton/HELM/helm_workbooks.html