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Readership maths skills

You have patiently answered my questions about your math abilities for the past three weeks. It's time to summarise the results.

Two takeaways: (1) you've studied way more maths than I had expected, and (2) I shouldn't be afraid to use advanced maths, but if I can get by without it that is slightly better still.

Full article (5–14 minute read): Readership maths skills

Getting to know you

Over the past few weeks I've asked you some questions, and this is the next-to-last question I have planned for now.

I ask this because I'm surprised by how much maths you have studied, so I'd like to know what education level that corresponds to.

Flashcard of the week

I believe differential equations are an awesome modeling technology, but as mentioned in this week's article, I've forgotten all about how to use them. I've long wanted to fix that, but because I don't know them, they never seem to be the right modeling choice for me, so I find it hard to motivate myself to learn to use them; it's a vicious cycle.

However, learning how much maths y'all know intimidated me a little and gave me additional motivation to fix the differential equation-shaped hole in my brain. I've started reading Blanchard, Devaney, and Hall's Differential Equations. If I get far enough, I plan to proceed to Strogatz' Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos but we'll see how far I get.

I'm yet only at the first chapter. This is a recent flashcard I made on terminology.

What is the goal of an initial-value problem?

I make terminology flashcards not so much because I actually care about the terminology (although I do), but more because memorising the terminology helps when reading the rest of the book. This is also the reason I make flashcards on e.g. variable name conventions used in books I read. After finishing the book, I tend to throw away those flashcards, because variable name conventions are different between authors anyway. But they help while reading the book.

Anyway, an initial-value problem is the combination of differential equations and some initial conditions. The goal of the problem is

Finding the function that satisfies the initial condition and differential equations.

I do actually vaguely recall this from when I tried to learn computational fluid dynamics without the necessary background in differential equations.

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