Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenophon
I can't help you with a book recommendation. That said, you may find the following anecdote amusing...
When I was a Freshman at Carnegie Mellon (too many years ago!) one of my roommates was enrolled in the "Math Studies" honors mathematics program. The course called "Math Studies" was a 24-unit monster--equivalent to three heavy math/science courses--that aimed to cover all of undergraduate mathematics in four semesters.  Starting from first principles! (Of course the idea was that they'd start in on graduate math courses for their Jr. and Sr. years. But I digress.)
Sometime in December, my roommate came back from his math studies class looking totally boggled. When I asked what was up, he said "We learned to add today!" 
It turned out that they'd finally covered enough of the underpinnings of mathematics to understand why addition works -- after only 2.5 semesters-worth of an Honors-level undergraduate math course!
Xenophon
(whose brain still hurts when thinking about it...) |
no wonder i can't balance my accounts