Woggy Project #3: Learning Calculus

So, I believe in my last post I mentioned a point which in certain company is embarrassing to mention due to my lack of education, yet in other company is embarrassing to mention because it makes me look like some kind of nerdy freak. that point would be my desire to someday learn calculus.

"Calculus is the mathematical structure that lies at the core of a world of seemingly unrelated issues." -- Great Courses Catalog

Back in high school, I was advanced enough in math to be a year up on the "standard" math track, but a year behind the most advanced folks. This left me in a position where having finished my graduation-required math at the end of my junior year, I had the choice to opt out of math for my senior year. While I had been pretty good at math when I had been younger, several years of drudgerously-taught geometry and advanced algebra coupled with a general math-testing anxiety I had intermittently struggled with even in elementary school had left me eager to dispose quickly of any and all math duties, despite a rather enjoyable final year of very well-taught pre-calculus. I knew by this point in time that I was destined to be a great writer, or musician, or both. What did I need any more math for? So I opted for Creative Writing and Music Scholars instead.

Later, in the midst of college Physics and Stats classes, I finally realized after observing my study partners (something I never had in high school) that there was basically a whole different style to learning these more empirical sorts of topics that would allow you to succeed in learning a subject, and even excelling at that subject, even when it was one that didn't instantly make sense to you the first time you looked at it. My previous lack of understanding on this matter was something I realized had caused in large part my assumption by the 9th grade that I was simply "no good at math", putting a nail in the coffin of my grade-school astronomer aspirations.

This realization in college helped me see that in fact, I did still have, as I thought I did way back in the sixth grade, a pretty good head for math and science. In the way that I had to prepare for my humanities learning by sitting down and reading, reading, reading, I could prepare for math and science by doing problem sets, problem sets, problem sets. And having teachers who actually knew how to show me the bigger picture every now and then certainly helped fill things out. When I did these things, everything fell into place, the fog lifted, and these topics were challenging and fun again, instead of dreadfully boring and painfully futile. But of course, by the time I had realized this I was not only waist-deep in fulfilling my other childhood vision of becoming a writer, but lacking in, among other things, one key essential required for any program of study in the sciences, which is to say, high school calculus. I secretly considered switching to Physics but stuck doggedly and mostly happily to my English-degree path.

I entertained the idea while I was still in college of taking some sort of Calc class as a means to simply round out my education, in the way I had taken, say, Russian when I already had fulfilled my language requirement, but given my always-full schedule I continued to reason that at this late date, what would be the point anyway? I knew it would probably require alot of hard work and I might not ever end up using it anyway.

Fast forward some many years into the future, where I find myself getting more and more interested in topics of physics and astrophysics, especially where it concerned the nature of time and space, so much so that I begin writing a novel that has this as a general theme, and I found myself running headfirst into that large wall of obstacle called "never took high school calculus! d'oh!" I literally found myself having to stop cold in my reading of various physics texts over and over again because "the next section of this book assumes you have a familiarity with integral calculus", etc.

While I got quite adept at identifying the few physics writers who made it their business to explain things to the "laypeople", trying as best they could to help the calculus-impaired understand certain basic elements of the calculus as it relates to physics without our having to actually, er, learn calculus, I could tell there was still always some basic fundamental understanding missing due to my lack of knowledge. So I set out again to tackle this mathematical obstacle. I poked around in the community college and adult education catalogs, I grilled my math-degreed husband over exactly what parts of calculus did I really need to learn to understand all this stuff here on page 132 of this book and page 8 of this article over here. Finally one day I was in a used book store and saw a little booklet titled Calculus by and For Young People: ages 7, yes 7, and up. I thought well, if a 7 year old can do it...

I did start to read the booklet, and started to understand it a little bit. But it did take concentrated effort and I eventually ended up putting it back on the shelf for a later day. Truth be told I was a bit embarassed to be reading a book designed for 7 year olds. Then another day I saw a book called Calculus Refresher. I thought, now here's something that should boil down all those basic concepts for me, yet still talk to me like I was an educated adult. Although, that book too has sat patiently waiting for me on the shelf. The times I have thought to pick it up I've felt like a sham, like someone who was trying to pass herself off as someone who used to know calculus of course, but had simply gotten rusty over the years, and was looking to brush up the old noggin. What do you know about calculus, the book seemed to say to me. Who exactly do you think you are fooling?

Ultimately, while I do think I might actually read these books someday, the conclusion I think I've come to about this is that I really just need to take some sort of a class. But of course the embarrassment of actually having to sit in a class, at this point in life, and admit to a whole classful of people that I, an educated person, with two degrees, happened to have never learned calculus, has been a difficult hurdle for me to overcome.

A possible solution came in the mail a few weeks ago in the form of a catalog at The Great Courses University, a place that offers online and video lecture "courses" in various subjects taught by real actual college professors. They actually have a calculus class. It's designed exactly for people like myself, it seems. And no grades, tests, imagined snickering of classmates or teachers. So, who knows, maybe I'll actually get to it this time? A girl can dream!!

Things left to complete this woggy project:

• order calculus video class
• open packaging, etc.
• actually begin watching calculus class
• with a notebook and pen!
• repeat until calculus has been learned

or...

• read calculus books
• take notes
• repeat until calculus is learned

or...

• wait for magical calculus knowledge food to be invented
• choose flavor and buy calculus-knowledge food
• eat tasty, tasty calculus knowledge
• instantly know calculus!
  

Update: Woggies #1 and #3

Woggy #1 Update: BC Trip Scrapbook

I can now check some items off my Woggy To-do list:

X wait for photos and scrapbook cover,etc. to be delivered
X plan scrapbook layout
X create any needed text or other related content
X paste up first 7 days of trip

Things left to complete this woggy project:

• paste up remaining 5 days of trip
  
• punch holes in the pages
  
• assemble scrapbook
• clean up the disaster zone left behind by this project
• sit back on my couch with my scrapbook and reminisce about my fab trip

Woggy #3 Update: Learning Calculus

As often happens with true progress, the latest burst of activity towards completing this woggy came in a completely inadvertent and unexpected fashion. Having finally moved into the 21st century by getting an iPod nano for my birthday, I was looking to try out all of its various features, and stumbled across the iTunes U section of the store, in particular the completely free Calculus class offered by MIT's open courseware. So I figured what the heck, why not download? Of course as the entire point of me visiting the store that day was to find some sort of content other than music for my nano, as a test run to see if I could figure out how to make everything work properly, I had to upload the first lecture and try it out to see how everything worked. So before I knew it there I was sitting in my living room, watching the tiniest professor in the world give me a first day intro lecture all about derivatives. Once it was over I suddenly realized, hey! Look at that I've started learning Calculus finally!

I can now check some items off my Woggy To-do list:

X order calculus video class
X actually begin watching calculus class
X finish watching Lecture 1 (and understanding it!)

Things left to complete this woggy project:

• download and print out supplemental materials for this class
  
• watch, take notes and do any problems required for Lectures 2 - 16
  
• donate some money to MIT's open coursework program for goodness sakes!
• download the second Calculus class in the series
• repeat steps 1 & 2 for second class
• go and read all those physics chapters I couldn't read before I understood Calc!
  

Woggy Project #2: Mario Livio's The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved

My husband and I are members of Seattle's Pacific Science Center, which occasionally hosts lectures and book readings for adults. Since my husband is in the field of Computer Science, and I just have a hobby interest in math and sciences, this is a topic in which we both share an avid interest (in fact it is at a university well known for its math and sciences where we met).

A couple years ago, I heard this author speaking on the local public radio show about this book and was fascinated by the subject. I was happy to find he would be speaking at the Science Center that same week, and got my husband and some friends of ours to join me at the lecture. It was so interesting to me that I bought the book on the spot and had it signed by the author, which is something I'm usually too shy to do. The very next day I delved right into the book, and continued right through on and off over the following month until the page you see above.

I don't remember what led to the book being set down, but I'm sure it was something banal like the business of getting ready for the holidays or something like that. I even remember discussing the book at a party, having full intent to pick the book up the next week, but somehow it never ended up happening. After a while, I realized the book was still sitting out on the coffee table collecting dust, so I put the jacket back on it and put it back up on the shelf, bookmark in place, to tidy up the house. I knew I would pick it up again, because I was still very interested in continuing the book. Just not interested enough to drop everything and read it that day.

Now it joins several other unfinished books I have sitting on various shelves, bookmarks in place, waiting for their day of reopening. When I try to think of the reasons, other than "well, I ought to finish this other book first," the only main thing I can think of is that it was, for a person of my mathematical educational level (no calculus, yes now my pre-calc teacher can say he "told me so"), a book that did require a bit of extra concentration to read certain parts of it, since it did discuss various mathematical issues that were a part of what was largely a story of personalities. Also, I remember that somewhere in some notebook, I had been taking some sort of notes on this book, possibly to supplement my understanding of some ideas I was working on for a certain woggy novel of mine, or possibly to help expand my mathematical understanding (a sort of life woggy project of mine), or perhaps just because there were an unusual number of interesting quotes (the collection of which has been a lifelong woggy project since I was old enough to begin writing them down). So its also possible I keep thinking I should find that notebook before I continue reading, or perhaps I know it will be a slower read due to all the note-taking I will inevitably be inspired to do should I pick up such an inherently interesting book. In any case, I haven't picked up this highly interesting story ever since.

Things left to complete this woggy project:

• find a notebook with empty pages, and a pen/pencil
• set aside an afternoon or evening for reading
• take book off the shelf and out of its jacket
• begin reading next page
• finish reading the book