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

[KA4HJH]

>Did anyone else here on the list go through a similar phase when they got
>into electronics? I am too broke and busy right now to go back to school
>so I need to do this on my own.

<first draft of rant>

My experience has been that math *classes* beyond Algebra I were
increasingly boring because they were decreasingly "real-world"; dull
abstractions that were gone over endlessly because 2/3 of the class simply
didn't get it. It was an exercise in learning how to pass math tests, not
learning Math. At the same time everyone _else_ seemed to have a decreasing
ability to make the gestalt and every time the teacher assigned a "word
problem" it elicited a chorus of groans from the word-problem-challenged.
Now, math is an abstraction but the real world is loaded with it. What
better way to teach it to people who aren't math prodigies than using
real-world examples?

Now here's the punchline: the same people who got A's in Trig & Analysis I
(which bored me to tears) got C's and D's in Physics I, which I found
ridiculously easy (mostly Algebra I and a little trig--and we had
calculators by my time). Being able to game the system to pass tests
suddenly didn't work for that crowd anymore because it was ALL a "word
problem"

The point, aside from my doubts about our educational system, is that with
some practical electronics and audio experience under your belt you're
already ahead of the game. Basic calculus concepts ultimately made
_intuitive_ sense to me--without being formally educated in it--because of
the real-world relationship and it probably will for you. You just need
that gestalt. That's the basic thing you're looking for. Math may exist in
a classical vacuum but what I can hear is much more interesting to me.

Finding a book that teaches it this way...ouch. Life is nothing but a "word
problem"and that I simply "get it". It boggles me that they didn't teach
math (and other things) that way. Probably still don't. And yeah, that
digital filter stuff in EN made my eyes glaze over but the rest of it...

<rant paused>

-- 

Terry Bowman, KA4HJH
"The Mac Doctor"

"You'd PAY to know what you REALLY think"--Dobbs