What do You Do if You will Get Good at Mathematics for Problem Solving

 This is a general question, but here are a few hints, which may be directed at your parents if you're young enough to have parents guiding your life still

I'm not going to say much about mathematics itself since there's a lot of it out there, and plenty of books and I don't have enough space.

Step 1. Get yourself 3 copies of A Mathematician's Lament by Paul Lockhart.

The book is available freely by download from various places and also as an Amazon Kindle book.

This book will not solve all your problems, but might get you asking some of the right questions. The three copies are for yourself, your parent (if there is one) and whoever is currently teaching you math, and for you all to compare notes after reading it.

Dr Lockhart has pet peeves and great ideas, and it's up to you to separate them according to your own abilities and inclinations.

2. To be good at mathematics, it needs to ascend a notch from a subject at school to a particle of your being, just like Sunday School (sorry if you're not Christian, just an example) is intended to teach you to be a good Christian all the time, not just on Sunday mornings.

3. To achieve this, and make a truly functional difference in your mathematical achievements, I suggest, on behalf of all the gifted mathematics students of my acquaintance (and I've known quite a few) that you need to upgrade your foundation skills, starting with arithmetic. This could seem burdensome, so it's best to couple it with a game, such as being able to estimate the value of a shopping cart without the use of a calculator. This is a valuable life skill, never mind how far you go in math, so how about going in that direction

4. Another book that may help you integrate math into everyday like is Mathematics for the Million (various editions)

5. If you're past the high school level, you might consider the book Companion to Concrete Mathematics by my old friend and teacher Z. A. Melzak. This book in particular (available as a Dover reprint) is not a textbook full of tedious things for you to do. It's a treasure-trove of difficult mathematical problems, still brought within the grasp of an undergraduate student. They are for your amusement as much as anything.

6. That's where we have to go --- making math fun. The other persons mentioned above can take inspiration from Mathematician's Lament to formulate an action plan. The plan should extend through summer breaks and through your entire effort to become more mathematical.

7. You should pay attention to related matters like Physics and Economics because they are fruitful contemporary areas of application of math. Economics in particular is neglected in the old textbooks, but many modern business textbooks have applications. See The Mathematics Behind Wall Street for an example -- only the most basic math is needed to grasp that book.

Writer : Bruce Balden from Quora