Is it possible to learn maths via programming, or you should learn maths for programming?

Question

I am not the best in maths, not very horrid either, but lower than the average, I've always been thinking to improve my maths, but schools and books didn't do the job because I get bored too fast. The only thing I don't get bored with is coding and gaming, so I thought what if coding a program that solves mathematical problems will help me understand maths better, most of these problems are limits (calculus), functions, Differential calculus, and some other subjects (I already said am not that good) similar to the previous noted.

My question is: Am I able to achieve a better knowledge in maths if I do some specific program coding, and if possible, is physics possible that way too? Or am I wrong and Maths should be learned before programming to help improve my coding?

P.S : C++ is the preferred language.

Answer 1

You will only learn math or physics from programming if you actually use the programming to solve math and physics problems, although functional languages like Haskell have concepts in them that are very "mathy". I would suggest going to a web site like Kahn Academy or Project Euler. Solve the problems on there using code, and you'll improve both your coding skills and math skills at the same time.

Answer 2

Obviously you should learn maths through programming. If you attempt to simulate physical objects you will need to learn all sorts of physics and maths, and you will enjoy it.

Answer 3

Have a look at matlab. Its a lanague designed for doing mathematical functions in code.

Answer 4

The SICP book has a very nice section on math. But I would suggest that you try to take linear algebra, discrete mathematics, and The Calculus at a minimum, if you learn only from writing programs your education is likely to be very deep, but not very broad.

Answer 5

I think they go hand in hand. A solid grounding in mathematical techniques will open up options in programming you wouldn't have otherwise, meanwhile programming can open up interesting avenues of mathematical study.

I've recently started using wxMaxima, a nice graphical front-end to the excellent open source Maxima Computer Algebra System (aka a CAS, like the commercial Maple or Mathematica systems).

It won't teach you anything about maths on it's own, but it will certainly make playing around with maths more interesting and fun, that in itself could encourage you to learn more.

Answer 6

This is my take...

Programming Will Help Test Your KNOWLEDGE

When I was in high school and middle school, I would program my calculators to do the monotonous math for me. Some people claimed it was cheating, but I always argued that I wouldn't be able to write the programs if I didn't truly understand the math.

For instance, let's say you wanted to create a small program to compute the C value, given A and B, within the Pythagorean theorem. How do we do it? Well, we know that:

A^2 + B^2 = C^2

So to solve for C, we have:

C = SQRT(A^2 + B^2)

Therefore, the program might be something like (assuming proper headers, this is a bare bones example):

cout << "Enter value for A: " 
cin << valA;
cout << "Enter value for B: "
cin << valB;

float valC = sqrt(pow(valA, 2) + pow(valB, 2))
cout << "C = " << valC << "\n";

HOWEVER...

Where and How Do You Acquire Said Knowledge?

In the previous example, we needed to know how to solve for C within the equation A^2 + B^2 = C^2. If we didn't know to square root both sides to find C, how could we solve the problem?

IMO, it boils down to: programming will not TEACH you math absolutely, but it WILL IMPROVE the skills you acquire.

Answer 7

If you're interested in working in AI, data processing, physics simulation or graphics then you need maths. Conversely, if you're not, then I reckon you don't. It's a case of use it or lose it, why learn French if you don't want to live in France? There are plenty of problem domains that just require conditional logic.

Having said that, there's a natural incline in programming towards mathematics , and it's going to do you nothing but good to gain some understanding of it.

Answer 8

You don't need much math for "programming".

You need math for "computer science".

If you plan to use pre-existing library solutions for everything, then you probably don't care how they work. But if you plan to make your own algorithms and data structures, you will need to know math, as CS is heavily math based.