[sdiy] SDIY MATH GOALS--need real help!

[Aaron Lanterman]

On Feb 26, 2009, at 9:00 PM, Dan Snazelle wrote:

> AND i am wondering what else should i read, or study?
> AND WHAT MUST I KNOW?  is calc important? I know trig is.

Really, for the most part, you can get away with just being very, very  
comfortable with:

1) basic algebra, manipulating polynomials - you don't even need  
quadratic equations; and
2) complex numbers

The only trig you _need_ is to know what sines and cosines are.

To do filter analysis you can do everything in the frequency domain,  
in which case you don't really _need_ calculus.

If you do later into calculus, if you know how to differentiate and  
integrate sine, cosine, and exp, you're set. You don't need to  
integrate by parts or anything freaky.

Now this won't get you the entire world. For instance FM synthesis  
gets into some heavy math involving Bessel functions, and designing  
with discrete FETs sometimes requires you to solve a quadratic  
equation. But knowing how to manipulate complex numbers and just  
messing with polynomials will get you very, very far.

- Aaron