I’ve been slowly upgrading my understanding of complex math lately, by working (in python) through stuff on Project Euler and betterexplained, etc. I just discovered the derivations package in Debian. It’s a book of applied math proofs, styled after K&R’s The C Programming Language’s logical progression and easy reference (K&R’s TCPL is a book that I really enjoyed, and it opened a lot of (conceptual) doors for me as a kid).
Working through this in python is a very useful exercise; it’s teaching me lots about the most efficient ways of doing things in that language, and with the standard library tools, some of which I rarely find use for otherwise.
Anyway, together with some other things mentioned in the preface, Derivations seems like a very promising book. Except for one thing:
One particular respect in which the book departs requires some defense here, I think: the book employs hexadecimal numerals.
So it’s going to explain complex math, but it’s going to do it… in hexadecimal.
Not sure whether to laugh or cry. But I’ll see how it goes. I don’t entirely disagree with the idea that, “If one wishes to reach hexadecimal ground, one must leap.” It’s just that I don’t really see the point of becoming THAT fluent in hex, when understanding the basic concept of bases, and knowing how to convert from dec<>hex<>oct<>bin, that 25 is 32, and that 232 is roughly ~4 billion is almost certainly enough. Is this book really suggesting I learn to do all my math in hex? And if so, is there any real benefit? It does seem to suggest that math is more beautiful in hex, but I’ve never heard of anything special about base-16, in relation to laws of physics, for instance.
Well, find out next time, same bat-time, same bat-channel, I guess 
Tags: Development, django, math, python
Yeah i think i agree. Knowing hex bin oct etc.. its useful. But only if your doing work on something like a compiler or writing a lot of assembly or really low low system stuff. Other wise you really don’t care you just know what you want to do and use whats available
like say your writing a web app in php.. do you really need to know that the number 17 in binary is 0001 0001 lol
Project euler is pretty good i find if you have to learn a new programming language i like to do a few of those problems in it to learn the language better. But its still hard to find something really mathematical to do in programming only thing i really done was some numerical integration i put up on my blog. but ehh.. maby i’ll find something interesting eventually