The Journey to write "Math Journey"

Like most people, learning math was a long journey. We started by knowing the names of the numbers, counting little balls and toys, and define several arithmetic operations and build our problem solving skills through countless arithmetic drills and eventually do more symbolic manipulation in high school algebra and so on. Most priviledged students end their math journey in single variable calculus.

My math journey ended in undergraduate level. I was a math major who basically chose a few classes out of a list of rarely ever offered classes from the catalog and I graduated. The real math question that every math major should ask is this: "how am I going to make a living." Of course we can be *real* good and become professors which in turn create even more math majors. I ended up doing programming for a living. I am not a PhD/professor material.

It has been quite some time since my college years. I learned a great deal but I also forgot a great deal! One day Fermat's Last Theorem came to my mind. All I remember was it was a hard theorem that no one can prove for hundreds of years, but I don't recall what it is! One day I tried to recall what I know about calculus, I know derivative of sine is cosine, but I don't remember why! I cannot let my knowlege slip away.

Most math books fall into 2 catagories: way too easy and way too difficult. That book that says "College Algebra" thick text is title inflation. That stuff is nothing "college" about it. A harder-working 16-year-old should be able to handle that. That yellow covered stuff titled "Modern Algebra" or "Introduction to " are outrageously difficult and only for the real hardcore graduate students.And there are those especially targeted for less motivated students, which contains good materials, but often they are too short and too narrow a topic. Those also belong to the way too easy category.

Math has no boundary. I see Arithmetics/Algebra/Geometry/Trig/Calculus as one continuous subject.

Of course, calculus itself is a BIG topic if we go into great details and provide lots of homework problems. A typical textbook has a 1000 pages. That is enough to intimidate many students. Calculus is also HARD. It does require some math maturity to grasp. The slow slow pace of typical high school that take entire year to cover basic algebra and geometry concepts will have a hard time catching up. But they don't have to be just reading textbooks. They can do some fun readings outside their text.

I tried hard and couldn't find many books that cover all these topics. Actually I found one, a very well written book, titled "Mathematics: from the birth of numbers", by Jan Gullberg. This is it! It covers a broad number of topics (beyond typical high school stuff) but at a whopping size of 1093 pages.

I'd like to see a smaller one, that go over math topics in a fun way, without all that drills. Rather than looking for one, why don't I simply WRITE one? I'll present what I know, discover interesting topics that I didn't know, and relearn anything that I forgot. Here it is.

I want to write a book that I wanted to read when I was 16.

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Movie Review: Curse of the Golden Flower

Chow Yun Fat and Gong Li. Formula for successful Chinese made film in America. America loves these two Chinese stars. Together with the super-talented singer/pianst Jay Chow. This is a cast to attract crowds.

So this is a movie about an emperor during the turbulent Five Dynasty period. This unstable period is not heavily documented in history. Chow plays the emperor who won the throne by marrying the empress Gong Li. The emperor has been forcing the empress to use Persian poison for years. The empress has been having a secret affair with the prince, from the previous marriage of the emperor. The prince also has an affair with the Imperial Doctor's daughter, whose mother is the emperor's first wife. Complex relationship here. The emperor and the empress has 2 other sons, one trying to save the mother from the drugs and another is quite clueless.

So there was Lord of the Ring style major battle scenes from the golden armor soldiers. Wow, superior battle scenes. The emperor and empress also had such elaborate costumes.
The palace is also elaborately built, which seems to be not possible during that period. The ladies Victorian style costumes are way too revealing for ancient China, even for today. The emperor stresses respect and loyalty during their family meeting. But actually none of them are doing any of that. That is the focus of the movie. People talk values but don't do them.

Jay Chou the prince heads the palace overthrow who mercilessly slaughter his own people. He is such great musician but can use a bit more work in facial expressions and acting.
Gong Li should remain using Chinese in her movies. Miami Vice was bad, ok? Chow's mandarin seem rather unnatural, can use some work too.

Stars: ***