Speak Maths

Two people and two worn old robots around a wooden table covered with hand-drawn sheets of mathematics, talking and smiling over tea and nuts.

Learn mathematical notation the way you learn a language: hear it, read it, write it, and tell stories in it, from = to ∇ and ∫.

The height of a valley side above its floor depends on where you stand: x metres east and y metres north.

Fog comes down. The hiker is 3 metres east and 1 metre north of the floor’s lowest point, but cannot see it.

Here the ground is 11 metres above the floor.

Each chapter tells a small story first in words, then in symbols. Switch the subtitles off when you are ready.

Draft: written by an AI helper and not yet checked by a teacher.

School

  1. Equal, bigger, smaller
  2. Plus, times, powers and brackets
  3. Letters for unknown numbers

Last school years

  1. Functions: machines with an input and an output
  2. Sets: who is on the shelf
  3. Logic: every door has a key
  4. Sums and counting: stacking cans
  5. Getting closer: limits
  6. How fast: derivatives
  7. Adding up slices: integrals
  8. Vectors: arrows with size and direction
  9. One sign, many meanings
  10. How a paper’s sentences are built
  11. Reading a fraction of sums

University

  1. The gradient: which way is uphill
  2. Fields: wind, whirl and flow
  3. Matrices: a recipe for many cakes
  4. Probability: how likely, and given what
  5. Statistics: reading a class in numbers
  6. Complex numbers: points that turn
  7. Differential equations: a law for how things change
  8. Regular expressions: patterns of text
  9. Big-O: how fast does the work grow?
  10. Graphs: dots, lines and counting walks
  11. How to read a dense passage
  12. Shorter, not vaguer

Master’s road

  1. Machine learning: a model that learns by walking downhill
  2. Proof: a few signs that carry an argument