Reddit reviews How to Solve It: Modern Heuristics
We found 4 Reddit comments about How to Solve It: Modern Heuristics. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Used Book in Good Condition
You have a very limiting view on what mathematics is. That is the first thing you need to change. Mathematics is not arithmetic or formulas to be memorized and applied, those are just some of the nice end results of mathematics.
The way the brain works is messy. It is made for rough approximation. That is great for a lot of problems, like, how to find prey in the forest and what to do when approached by a possible threat. It is terrible for problems that you need to make sure are rock solid like whether a given bridge design will fall down or the precise data flows through a processor. Mathematics is a set of rules that make sure reasoning, and therefore solutions, are rock solid. No more, no less.
The cool thing is that solid reasoning is a lot more fun then it sounds when you get beyond the basics and memorizing techniques and formulas to be applied like you are a robot. And computer science (a branch of mathematics) is a great way to make that fun clear.
So, step 1: change your relationship with mathematics.
Ok. So, what mathematics should you look into? Computers can do amazing things with a great deal of mathematics from vectors and matrices for 3d graphics to statistics for machine learning (mimicking, in large part, how our messy brains work) but the place to start that is fundamental is Combinatorics and Graphs (Graphs meaning linked nodes not bar graphs or pie charts which in the computer/mathematics world are called 'plots' to avoid confusion).
These are doorways. You will not learn everything you need to know from these Wikipedia pages but it will get you familiar.
Also, this book will change your relationship to mathematics and problem solving.
No problem, happy to help! After I posted this I remembered two books you may find useful:
The Essentials of Metaheuristics - Free, detailed notes on metaheuristics
How to Solve It: Modern Heuristics - Very much not free, IMO the best introduction to the field
Project Euler is great, but I can't imagine a less efficient way to learn about "advanced algorithmic techniques". Most of the problems are concerned with brute force search, dynamic programming and "clever" ways to trim the computation trees of those two techniques on specific problems.
A better way would be to read books on general algorithms, on optimization, on AI and on machine learning. To that end, two of my favourites are
Alternatively, if you've got a specific area of interest then you might want to find a handbook for that area. For example, here's one on data structures.
As a side note, if the price tag of any of those books puts you off, take a look at Library Genesis.
I must have been a bit unclear in my wording. One of the main reasons for my complaints is that I want a calculator that is faster and has a higher resolution. We both already agree, then, that the EX series is newer, faster, and has a higher resolution screen than the ES series. Anything I wrote on that subject is meant only to confirm those facts with hard evidence and to show more-precisely how much faster the EX series is than the ES series, rather than leaving the answer a vague "faster". It turns out the EX is about 5 times faster than the ES.
As a mathematics and computer science graduate who often tutors students ranging from fifth year elementary maths to linear algebra and number theory, I use almost all of the functions on the 115es plus at different points. I enjoy keeping my maths knowledge intact by doing some calculations or solutions on paper or in my head and using my calculator to confirm my results or tell me I'm wrong, which includes something as simple as finding the prime factorization of a somewhat large integer or finding the product of a series. Those are but two of many (literally hundreds, as mentioned in my post) examples of what the fx-115ES Plus can do that the US fx-991EX can't do at all. I can get around some of those by converting the products to sums but that's a huge extra step on my part and also hardly worth doing since those will take a very long time on the calculator. I like to go to the library on weekends and study "How to Solve It: Modern Heuristics", which covers various areas of maths, and getting through all tedious calculations by using my cheap scientific calculator or confirming the soundness of my more symbolic results by doing a few quick inexact calculations. That's why I would LOVE the fx-991EX to do all that my old fx-115ES Plus can do. I also hate worrying about the battery life of my graphing calculators and having to recharge them. I hardly have to worry if I've been doing tens of hours of calculations on my scientific calculator for weeks on end, but often have to get new batteries for my TI-89 or have to recharge any of the newer ones. I'm honestly really tired of always having to worry about recharging my mobile and other devices as well.
I have a similar philosophy for other devices, like my MP3 player, the SanDisk Clip+. I got it when it was cheap, not $100 as it is now due to scarcity. After I switched its operating system to RockBox, which makes it able to play all sorts of audio files and added tons of functionality like a highly-customizable equalizer, I had a very simple device that could do everything I wanted. I don't care about fancy colors and album art or touchscreens on a simple audio player. All that stuff breaks and uses more power anyway. All I care about is that it's powerful enough to do all the real things I want it to do, not pointless fancy graphical things meant only for marketing purposes that are detrimental overall.