Hardest math class you've taken?

[EyeMWing]

I took calc 1 in HS. If I'm reading my list of required courses for my major correctly... I don't even need it

 

[TallBill]

Calc2 in high school. Declined calc 3, and havn't taken a math class since.

 

[Engineer]

Calculus II.

Calculus III and D.E. were both easier.

 

[ngvepforever2]

Originally posted by: Gibson486
hahahaha...I thought Calc 3 (multivariable) was the easist of the bunch....

hahahaha...I thought all the calculus were easy as hell...

Regards

ng

 

[EyeMWing]

Actually. I have to take Math 110 (Techniques of Calculus) during my third semester. After that, I'm done.

 

[gar3555]

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: Omegachi
linear differential

woah:shocked:

dude...wtf is that:shocked:

agreed with the Linear Diff.
Was your class just alot of Laplace Theory and such?

 

[HomerSapien]

Advanced Calculus (Proof class) and a Partial Differential Equation class.

 

[cronos]

introduction to stochastic processes
(600-level graduate course)

'introduction', yeah right...

 

[NatePo717]

Originally posted by: Justin218
differential equations wasnt fun

One of the worst. Calc 3 (sequences and series) wasn't much fun either.

 

[IronWing]

Hardest to easiest for me:

Spectral Analysis (dropped after three weeks of near total incomprehension)
Integration (generally taught in Calc II) I was okay at it but it never came easily
Trig (memorization of trig functions never clicked w/ me)
Precalc
General Statistics
Stochastics
Differential equations (generally taught in third semester Calc III)
Geostatistics (for some reason much easier for me than general stats)
Differentiation (generally taught in first semester Calc I)
Geometry
Algebra

 

[IronWing]

Originally posted by: cronos
introduction to stochastic processes
(600-level graduate course)

'introduction', yeah right...

I kind of liked stochastics but I had a head start on it via working with some geostatistical methods so that it just clicked.

 

[Soccer55]

Originally posted by: Kalbi

Originally posted by: Soccer55
Without a doubt, Algebraic Geometry was the hardest for me. I just didn't completely understand it.....and I was not alone.

-Tom

STOP IT!!!

Stop what?

-Tom

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose
abstract algebra was weird, but I did well in it even though I still don't know what it was about

lmao, I skipped a week or so of classes, with the prof's permission, to experiment and find out what it was like to struggle in a math class - so I could understand what my students would be experiencing when they struggled in math.

All I can say about that experience is that it made that class a major pita. I was so lost that I didn't know where to begin with questions. I still managed to get an A - so, like RabidMongoose, I "did well in it even though I still don't know what it was about"
I started from scratch during the summer after the course was over and went through everything again until I did understand it.

Otherwise, the hardest math I've done was independent research in understanding extra-dimensional objects by looking at their intersections with 3-d space. Daily headaches as I thought about it and worked on it. Or to put it this way, imagine you live on a line and can only comprehend 1 dimension. You only see a projection of a 2 dimensional image (such as a triangle) on your line. Spin the 2-dimensional image. View how its projection (a line) changes length as the 2-d object is spinning. Now, attain the ability to think in 2-d while you live in your 1-d universe. Figure out what the object looks like.

Now, you can move on to a 2-dimensional plane of existence. This is when I realized I could be more creative. Rather than just looking at a projection of a 3-d object on my two-dimensional space, I could even move the 3-d object through my 2-d space and view the 2-d intersection. ex) if a sphere could move through a piece of paper, its intersections (as it moved through) would start as a point and grow into a circle with a diameter equal to that of the sphere, then decrease back to a point before winking out of existence.

Taking this another step, I wrote a program on Mathematica so that I could view movies of 4-dimensional objects passing through 3-dimensional space. I attempted to train my mind to be able to grasp the shapes of 4-dimensional objects. I think I saw God or something... it gave me horrible headaches.

Otherwise, Real Analysis was one of the more difficult math classes to get an A in... tough prof.

 

[WhiteKnight]

Real Analysis and Matrix Analysis.

 

[mdchesne]

combinatorial mathematics

 

[zbalat]

I have a B.S. in mathematics but I dropped chaos theory after one week. Mind blowing stuff thats well beyond my realm of comprehension.

 

[JetBlack69]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
I think I saw God or something... it gave me horrible headaches.

hahahahaha

I was thinking about 4-d objects in 3-d space....

 

[Soccer55]

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose
abstract algebra was weird, but I did well in it even though I still don't know what it was about

lmao, I skipped a week or so of classes, with the prof's permission, to experiment and find out what it was like to struggle in a math class - so I could understand what my students would be experiencing when they struggled in math.

All I can say about that experience is that it made that class a major pita. I was so lost that I didn't know where to begin with questions. I still managed to get an A - so, like RabidMongoose, I "did well in it even though I still don't know what it was about"
I started from scratch during the summer after the course was over and went through everything again until I did understand it.

Otherwise, the hardest math I've done was independent research in understanding extra-dimensional objects by looking at their intersections with 3-d space. Daily headaches as I thought about it and worked on it. Or to put it this way, imagine you live on a line and can only comprehend 1 dimension. You only see a projection of a 2 dimensional image (such as a triangle) on your line. Spin the 2-dimensional image. View how its projection (a line) changes length as the 2-d object is spinning. Now, attain the ability to think in 2-d while you live in your 1-d universe. Figure out what the object looks like.

Now, you can move on to a 2-dimensional plane of existence. This is when I realized I could be more creative. Rather than just looking at a projection of a 3-d object on my two-dimensional space, I could even move the 3-d object through my 2-d space and view the 2-d intersection. ex) if a sphere could move through a piece of paper, its intersections (as it moved through) would start as a point and grow into a circle with a diameter equal to that of the sphere, then decrease back to a point before winking out of existence.

Taking this another step, I wrote a program on Mathematica so that I could view movies of 4-dimensional objects passing through 3-dimensional space. I attempted to train my mind to be able to grasp the shapes of 4-dimensional objects. I think I saw God or something... it gave me horrible headaches.

Otherwise, Real Analysis was one of the more difficult math classes to get an A in... tough prof.

A guy I was in grad school with has a 3-D projection of a Klein Bottle made of glass.....he filled it with M&Ms.

-Tom

 

[Umberger]

It's a tie between Vector Calculus and Proofs.
Vector Calculus: Operations on vector fields, surface integrals, etc...
Proofs: needs no explanation.

edit: it's interesting to see differential equations on here so much. i really liked that class. other than trig, diff.eq. is one of the classes that I use most often now.

 

[kindest]

calculus

 

[yourdeardaniel]

Originally posted by: Umberger
It's a tie between Vector Calculus and Proofs.
Vector Calculus: Operations on vector fields, surface integrals, etc...
Proofs: needs no explanation.

edit: it's interesting to see differential equations on here so much. i really liked that class. other than trig, diff.eq. is one of the classes that I use most often now.

in what field? job?

 

[AMCRambler]

Calculus 2 in college

 

[Umberger]

Originally posted by: yourdeardaniel

Originally posted by: Umberger
It's a tie between Vector Calculus and Proofs.
Vector Calculus: Operations on vector fields, surface integrals, etc...
Proofs: needs no explanation.

edit: it's interesting to see differential equations on here so much. i really liked that class. other than trig, diff.eq. is one of the classes that I use most often now.

in what field? job?

I am still going to school, but I worked over the summer of Georgia-Pacific. I use differential equations in everything from Thermodynamics to Vibrations.

(Mechanical Engineering)

 

[igowerf]

Probably algorithm design or advanced data structures. They were actually computer science courses, but there was very little programming involved. Both were very heavy on discrete math, algorithms, and proofs. I thought Linear Algebra was really hard, but apparently, it was because of my professor. People I knew in other classes thought it was incredibly easy, while everyone in my class agreed with me that it was really hard.

 

[Kev]

trig. i hated it and never saw a use for it which made me hate it even more.