Math Journey - How is it going so far?

I have been doing math in my free time for the past couple of months, and I wanted to take a moment to reflect and note down a few thoughts about it.

Why am I doing math?

Whats my main motivation for starting math from scratch(math foundations)?

Learning math is a very personal goal for me with no immediate outcomes and is not linked to immediate career growth in any way. So what drives me to prioritize math, even on days when I dont get much else done? The answer is simple - mental health.

Intellectual learning is a key part of what keeps me grounded and emotionally fulfilled. It engages my mind in a way that doesn’t allow unhealthy fixations, procrastination, and boredom to take over and wreak havoc. Since my mental well-being has been my top priority for a while now, math has naturally become a top priority too.

How I have stayed consistent (and also found some joy in it)

Short answer - while I haven’t been very consistent in practicing math daily, I keep picking it back up again even if its only for a few minutes to solve a couple of sums or revise a few concepts.

One thing that helps is journaling my learnings on GitHub. It allows me to review concepts quickly - I can just open the repo on my phone and give it a quick read whenever I feel like it.

I also use LLMs like chatGPT to generate review problems to solve, based on what I have learned. I am not consistent with this but I think this is a great way to do spaced repetition without much effort. Solving structured problems and making little bits of progress always feels gratifying and fulfilling, and makes it slightly easier for me to keep coming back to studying math.

Some resources I use

• Khan Academy – This has been great for doing assessments for any particular topic and figuring out weaknesses.
• OpenStax Books – My current go-to primary resource for math foundations.
• Math Stack Exchange – A fun place to hang out and read about urban legends in math.
• OpenNote – An AI math tutor I have enjoyed trying out.
• Open Library – I have sometimes borrowed and read math books from here.

I am working with openstax books primarily because I prefer using text books to learn over other forms of content, but I do suplement it with learning using LLMs, video tutorials and other forms of content as well.

Studying math can be charming

Sometimes, to mix things up and make the learning process feel more alive, I will dive into the history of mathematics - how certain topics emerged or how it evolved in time and the fascinating stories around them. For instance, how Newton and Leibniz were rivals in mathematics and fought over credit for who invented calculus first was quite dramatic and interesting to read about. Discovering these delightful anecdotes and historical moments makes studying math even more engaging and helps deal with any drops in motivation for me.

Going forward

So far, learning math has been an interesting experience. I am excited to get to the non-trivial topics and more challenging problems soon. I am currently working through High-school Algebra and then will pick pre-calculus topics next, and I am curious to see how things will go.

I can be reached at [email protected] , or connect with me on twitter

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it.