Several people have told me they can’t understand most of my math posts, but they subscribe because they enjoy the occasional math post that they do understand. If you’re in that boat, thanks for following, and I wanted to let you know there have been a few posts lately that are more accessible than you might think.
The posts I refer to don’t require any advanced math to follow, though they may require some advanced math to fully appreciate.
For example, my latest post on means and sums only requires pre-calculus math to understand, though it introduces ideas that usually aren’t introduced until they’re needed in more advanced courses.
A few days ago I started what turned into a series of four blog posts, all consequences of combining the binomial theorem and Euler’s theorem. Here are the four posts:
- Building high frequencies out of low frequencies
- Manipulating sums
- More juice in the lemon
- Chebyshev’s other polynomials
These posts do not require calculus, and should be mostly accessible with high school math.
Chebyshev polynomials come up several times in these posts. High school math will not prepare you to appreciate the significance of these particular polynomials, but you can follow along by ignoring the name and just thinking “OK, they’re polynomials. I know what a polynomial is.”
“You talkin’ ta’ me? You talkin’ ta’ ME?”
Ah, yup.
But I’m really here for the Python and LaTeX…
I think the problem with your recent maths posts is that they require more steps to understand than readers can hold in their head (well, at least this one).
The means and sums post got enough of my attention that I ‘cheated’ and used a piece of paper.