That's great. Can you now teach me how I (~20 year old) can be interested in math? I deeply want to understand it but it gets so boring after a while... Is there any help for me out there?
The popular books by mathematician Ian Stewart
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&...
are very interesting and mathematically accurate. Some readers also like the books by Keith Devlin,
http://www.amazon.com/Keith-Devlin/e/B000APRPC6/ref=ntt_athr...
one of which I am reading right now.
I like almost every book by John Stillwell
http://www.amazon.com/John-Stillwell/e/B001IQWNS2/ref=ntt_at...
and especially recommend the latest edition of Mathematics and Its History
http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Its-History-Undergraduate-...
as a book you should try to obtain from a library to see what a book with challenging, interesting, but accessible problems looks like.
Many people like the videos that feature Edward Burger
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/professors/professor_deta...
or Arthur Benjamin lecturing about math in the Great Courses (Teaching Company) video lecture series, which you may be able to find at a library.
AFTER EDIT: Here is a link for Calculus Made Easy, a book recommended by another participant here.
http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Made-Easy-Silvanus-Thompson/d...
First step: choose a problem that you need to solve -- a goal. Think about the problem, how valuable it would be for you to get a grip on it. And it doesn't matter what the problem is, as long as it's important and tangible.
Second step: learn how to solve that problem. Don't necessarily understand all the details at this stage, but know how to solve it in practice, for any statement of the problem.
Third step: learn the details of why the above solution works.
And guess what? The above is a very effective way to acquire an understanding of mathematics, and acquire self-confidence as well. And it is exactly the reverse of our normal math education curriculum.
I gave up on mathematics after my first college course but found that for everything I wanted to get into, Machine Learning & Bayesian stats, it was essential . A year later I know math better than ever before even though I haven't stepped inside a classroom in years.
You're probably getting bored because most math books are hundreds of pages long and in addition to the material they include mathematicians bio's, several solution methods, and the explanations of edge cases.
http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Made-Easy-Silvanus-Thompson/d...
e.g. no college will ever endorse this book as a text, because they need to sell 60k in calc 101 text books each semester so they can get their cut.
Yes, fair enough, however I think the discussion is not so much about schooling as education. Not all education takes place in college -- and with costs rising as they are, I predict a future with many more autodidacts -- self-educators.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." -- Mark Twain
The authors have a way of digging deeper into problems than you might expect. It's not a book where you learn some theorems, then apply them in the problems.