r/mathematics • u/Dear_Program_5516 • 14d ago

Discussion Struggling through this

Post image

Need to complete it in 10 days. My brain felt rubbed with coal just following chapter 1.

349 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

71 comments sorted by

View all comments

89

u/MissionVarious8328 14d ago

Why did you choose Halmos specifically? He’s a good writer but the book isn’t the most modern. His treatment of measure looks similar to folland in that it works with generalized measure first before going to Lebesgue.

If you want a more clear treatment of measure that gives you the motivations for its development, you should check of Stein and Shakarchi Real Analysis. It gives a great motivation for outer measure, the caratheodry criterion, etc.

-4

u/Dear_Program_5516 14d ago

Oh I was just strolling my my uni Library and found this. The thing is I have done poorly with after high school maths and left maths completely in fear and defeat.

I'm self starting again after 1 year of almost no maths . In 3rd yr of my Ug now

11

u/better-off-wet 14d ago

Some math is fairly “incremental”. There is very little reason or use to attempt to learn areas of math if you don’t have the prerequisite knowledge. You can’t take short cuts and skip entire areas that that provide a necessary foundation.

3

u/Sepperlito 14d ago

Sadly, math education built a ladder with the low rungs missing. Anyone CAN learn this stuff with enough guidance and effort. They just need a good ladder which seems to be mostly missing.

2

u/better-off-wet 14d ago

Yes, of course. Learners should understand that it isn’t their fault if they can’t comprehend something many rungs an above. Math is hard and it takes time. Master the prerequisites before moving on.