I need to learn math

**silverglade** · 05-14-2011, 03:22 AM

Hi, I needed to solve a problem today and someone told me the answer was converting a number to an Octal Base number. I didn't even think about that because I didn't know what one was. People on another forum told me that is covered in like 8th grade math. So I was wondering, does anyone know of some good books that I can learn math from from beginning, to algebra to calculus? Or what math I need to know? I don't want this to happen again where my math skills are so bad that I cannot even solve simple programs due to lack of math knowledge. Thank you. Derek:D

**pbrockway2** · 05-14-2011, 03:36 AM

"Math" is a ... big ... topic! Wikipedia is decent on simple stuff (but cr@p imao for complicated concepts, unlike the physics articles, for instance, which are good). The octal representation of numbers is covered in Octal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For general coverage you might want to have a look at Wikibooks subject:mathematics

**sunde887** · 05-14-2011, 03:37 AM

I don't know about any book, try googling around for algebra and calc books.

Octal isn't that hard to understand, decimal(base 10) is what we use and it counts like this

Java Code:

0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10

Octal looks like this

Java Code:

0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,20

instead of thinking of 10 as ten, think of it as 1 times base + 0.

So 10 in octal would be 8, the number
352 in octal is calculated similarly.

352 in decimal is so natural to us but it's similar, you do

Java Code:

10^2*3 + 10* 5 + 2

Similarly, in octal it is

Java Code:

8^2*3 + 8*5 + 2 == 192 + 40 + 2 ==234

And it repeats as the number gets larger. Think of the least significant number as 0, and as it gets larger the number increased

Java Code:

a7a6a5a4...a1a0

A seven digt number would be generically calculated as

Java Code:

base^7*a7 + base^6*a6 ... base^1*a1+base^0*a0

With this you can calculate hex(base 16), decimal(base 10), octal(base 8), binary(base 2).

**silverglade** · 05-14-2011, 04:06 AM

Never mind, I just purchased a ridiculous amount of math books from amazon. I should be good now. thanks. Derek

Thanks Sunde887. I hope you are doing well! thanks. Derek

**sunde887** · 05-14-2011, 04:11 AM

A fun book that I'm reading right now is Amazon.com: Code (DV-MPS General) (0790145050502): Charles Petzold: Books

It goes over the number systems pretty well, and moves onto more detailed hardware stuff if that interests you(logic gates, adders, etc)

**silverglade** · 05-14-2011, 04:41 AM

Ya that book looks pretty interesting. thanks.

**Fubarable** · 05-14-2011, 04:53 AM

Originally Posted by sunde887

A fun book that I'm reading right now is Amazon.com: Code (DV-MPS General) (0790145050502): Charles Petzold: Books

It goes over the number systems pretty well, and moves onto more detailed hardware stuff if that interests you(logic gates, adders, etc)

That looks fascinating. Lord, I remember reading a couple of his books back when I had the foolish notion of programming for Windows in C.

**sunde887** · 05-14-2011, 05:22 AM

Originally Posted by Fubarable

That looks fascinating. Lord, I remember reading a couple of his books back when I had the foolish notion of programming for Windows in C.

Is that a sincere post or do you not like his books?

**Fubarable** · 05-14-2011, 05:30 AM

Originally Posted by sunde887

Is that a sincere post or do you not like his books?

I love his books, and he's a terrific writer! I just couldn't stand C/C++, nor programming for Windows. It is a problem with my own mind and abilities rather than his writing.

**JosAH** · 05-14-2011, 09:10 AM

Originally Posted by Fubarable

I love his books, and he's a terrific writer! I just couldn't stand C/C++, nor programming for Windows. It is a problem with my own mind and abilities rather than his writing.

If you're really fascinated by numbers, read this one, it's written by John Conway, the inventor of 'life', the cellular automata game ... (it's one of the more 'fundamental' books in the field).

kind regards,

Jos