Simply put, I was a dipshit as an adolescent and stopped attending class around the 6th grade. After growing a little bit and noticing that life has nearly passed me by, I'm holding onto it's horns as hard as God can allow me to.

I've yet to complete an algebra1 course, not because of difficulty, but drugs kept me occupied in those years and now I have a whole business to run.

I want to get back at math. And not to trig by the end of the decade, but more like CalcII by the end of '08.

Entrepreneurship isn't for me, I'm going back and pursuing my dreams of a career in science-- engineering.

So, is there some sort of fastlane, like a "hooked-on-phonics" for numbers?

I've found plenty online, but I was just wondering if you guys had anything in particular in mind.

Your $0.02 would be truly appreciated. I can't let life pass me by.

If there were, everyone would use it. No one would study math until their senior year of high school. You get better at it by spending time doing it.

That said, if you can afford to spend fourteen hours every day reading through textbooks and working out examples, it's not unreasonable to think you could learn seven years of material in half a year.

This.
And being able to do simple maths like addition, subtraction & multiplication + division quickly in your head, then it speeds up working out examples tremendously.
And when I say simple I mean like 40 x 43, 827-678, 25^2 etc.

I've a simple method of squaring numbers if you'd like it. It is very useful for some numbers but only as efficient as normal multiplication for others.

Wow +1 for the human race.

I was just really depressed about society and thinking about how no one gives a shit about anything except when they are going to get laid next, when they were going to get drunk/high next, how they can try to pose better like a peacock and how people just sit around and watch T.V. all day like idiots. This post just really put me in a good mood.

^By the way what is your squaring way?

um

Well for numbers ending in 5 from 15-95:
take 35 for example.
35
x 35
-------

You take the 2 5s from the 35, multiply them and get 25. Then you take one of the numbers before the five (3 here for example) and multiply it by the other number before the 5 adding 1 before hand (3 x (3+1)).

3 5
x 3 5
----------
xx 25

3 5
x(3(+1)) 5
--------------
12 xx

Then just put the 2 figures together

35 x 35 = 1225 Um, hope thats clear enough


The other formula can be used on squaring any number no matter how big (well I tested into 000s).

take 13^2 for example.
Rounding 13 to the nearest 10 we get 10.
Now, 13-10 = 3. We take this 3 and add it to the 13. 13 + 3 = 16. Now multiply this 16 by the 10 we got earlier.
16 x 10 = 160. Now square the number we had which we had t take from the original figure to get to the nearest 10 (3).
3 x 3 = 9.
Add 2 figures, 160 + 9 =169

I'll give you another example.
Take 98^2
98 is closer to 100 than 90 so we choose 100. 98-100 = -2
98 + (-2) = 96. 96 x 100 = 9600
(-2)^2 = 4
9600 + 4 = 9604

For a number like 57^2 its probably just as handy squaring 57 than doing 60 x 54 + 3^2, but it comes in handy sometimes, and the main thinking behind it is to improve your mental math.

Goodluck with it

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