r/learnmath • u/EconomyBox6998 New User • 1d ago

Help with math+number theory

I only do what i know, and what i know is not enough at all, i forgot how to math anything almost and stuck with patterns only.

How to start from scratch and basics?

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u/AllanCWechsler Not-quite-new User 13h ago

It's hard to answer this question in a vacuum. We need some more background information. In particular: (1) How much do you remember? (2) What are your goals? What are you trying to accomplish?

There are lots of resources available, but I am hesitant to recommend anything without knowing more about your situation.

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u/EconomyBox6998 New User 13h ago

I can understand only the things i do and some stuff, but even when i understand stuff idk where or how to get to it, especially number theory, i am a guy of numbers, i have to look at numbers, outputs, data to make up something.

Like i made a formula to convert decimals to any base-b, like decimal to binary (base-2).

I started by converting decimals to binary and look at them trying to spot a pattern, and i did.

But for other things, looking at data is not a time saving strategy.

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u/AllanCWechsler Not-quite-new User 13h ago

In fact, since number theory gives results that apply to all numbers, just looking at particular examples will never get you where you want to go. Example: take any number and calculate the sum of its digits. The remainder when dividing by 9 will be the same for the original number and for the digit sum. You can verify particular examples until you are blue in the face (175 / 9 = 19, remainder 4; 1+7+5 = 13; 13 / 9 = 1, remainder 4), but that won't tell you why this is always true.

So, I recommend the following book: Recreations in the Theory of Numbers: The Queen of Mathematics Entertains, by Albert Beiler. This is an old book and should be available in many libraries; there are also cheap copies available for sale online.

Go through this book slowly. When you're done, I think you will be in a much better position to make more progress.

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u/EconomyBox6998 New User 12h ago

I appreciate you.

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u/AllanCWechsler Not-quite-new User 12h ago

You're welcome. Let us know how it goes.