Where to start if I want to teach myself math?

Question

I want to be a data scientist and thus I need to learn about Machine Learning. My intuition telling me that Machine learning require a pure math and I need to pick up some math subject. I know no math but basic.

I'm a programmer and currently learning python. I'm hitting the wall where math is require to understand and be able to make algorithm for specific problem that will take time, causing stress if I try to find a solution that already exist 1000 years ago.

Note: Before down voting or report my question please let me know the problem with my question. Sorry, English is not my first language.

Answer 1

I was in a similar situation. First of all you must try to understand what is your mathematics level, asking yourself questions when and what did I learn about mathematics. If the math you want to learn is within calculus range you have pretty good videos on Kahn Academy that is entirely free. You can complement your study with some exercise books that you can easily buy or acquire in a engineering department of a library. If you want to learn mathematics beyond calculus than it can be tough to find resources. But on there are a lot of free books on the internet as well as some recorded classes on youtube.

Answer 2

Suggestions:

For math of data science check out Free PDF: Foundations of Data Science by Avrim Blum, John Hopcroft and Ravindran Kannan.

By looking at the TOC of the book above it seems most of it was lifted off/inspired by Probability and Computing: Randomized Algorithms and Probabilistic Analysis by by Michael Mitzenmacher, Eli Upfal. The latter only requires modest amount of Discrete Math per its decription and the best book for that is Susanna Epp's Discrete Math and Applications (imo of course). It develops math maturity like no other.

The other subject you need is Linear Algebra. Unfortunately, there's no the book for that. You could simply search Amazon or Google and study what you like.