Maths textbooks

Pawel Kowalczyk   Tuesday, November 23, 2004, 16:47 GMT
Do you know any interesting online textbooks for maths? I'm a secondary school student and I'm looking for interesting sources to learn from, especially about algebra and geometry.
Sanja   Tuesday, November 23, 2004, 16:58 GMT
They say, if you're good at languages, you suck at maths. Completely true in my case. LOL :)
Pawel Kowalczyk   Tuesday, November 23, 2004, 17:38 GMT
Sanja, maybe there's a grain of truth in what you say ;). Anyway, I have to revise maths because I have matura this year (an exam which we take at the end of the secondary school). And, since I'm trying to do most of my reading in English, I'm looking for interesting resources for learning maths.

By the way, how do you pronounce this: "P(x) at x = a"?
Lavoisel   Tuesday, November 23, 2004, 18:10 GMT
Why do Math textbooks always feel depressed?
Because they have a lot of problems!
Easterner   Tuesday, November 23, 2004, 19:50 GMT
To Pawel Kowalczik:

For algebra, you can check out one of the following:

www.algebrahelp.com
http://www2.hawaii.edu/suremath/intro_algebra.html

To Sanja:

It is also true for me, curiously, though I had some classmates at high school who were good at both maths and languages. I never know if I'm the exception or the rule. :-)
Tom   Tuesday, November 23, 2004, 22:03 GMT
I am good at maths AND languages.


"P(x) at x = a"?

P of x at x equals a.
egg   Wednesday, November 24, 2004, 00:18 GMT
I am good at languages (fluent in Russian and learning Spanish) and maths, not to mention science (advanced physics and biology). Guess I'm just an all-round legend. Some people are just born superior.

Oh yeah I almost forgot, I own when it comes to art and design.
Jacob   Wednesday, November 24, 2004, 13:34 GMT
Here is a repository of textbooks in djvu format. Set your browser to Windows Cyrillic encoding if it doesn't automatically detect it.

http://217.16.26.42/algebra.php

They are mostly advanced books but you might find the linear algebra books are pretty good, and interesting. Also the 'short course in analytic geometry' and 'techniques of modern geometry'.

I will see what else I can find. I know some good books of olympiad-style problems which are a great way to learn about algebra and geometry and number theory, but I don't know if they exist online.

For what it's worth, I know many mathematicians who are good at languages and who claim that learning a language and learning pure math are very similar activities.
Sanja   Wednesday, November 24, 2004, 16:43 GMT
I think that maths and languages require different parts of our brains or something. Those who are good at both must be geniuses. LOL :)
Ed   Wednesday, November 24, 2004, 18:34 GMT
I'm taking Calculus and it's interesting although the teacher is more demanding than he should
Pawel Kowalczyk   Wednesday, November 24, 2004, 18:55 GMT
Easterner,

Thank you for the links. The first page covers only rather obvious topics, but the second one seems to be interesting (although the navigation is completely messed up).

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Jacob,

The books on the site you mentioned are rather intended for academic use, I believe. I couldn't understand the English ones, not to mention the Russian ones ;). And I couldn't find the two books you mentioned.

---

BTW, I found an interesting page on Google:

http://www.themathpage.com/aPreCalc/precalculus.htm
MJGR   Thursday, November 25, 2004, 09:17 GMT
Perhaps Maths and languages are similar. In fact, in both cases you must learn some general rules and adapt them to every situation.
Pawel Kowalczyk   Thursday, November 25, 2004, 14:22 GMT
And a great site for people learning physics:

http://www.lightandmatter.com/area1.html