Just gonna do a quick rundown.
0 <- this is a number.
1 <- this is a bigger number.
2 <- can be defined as 1+1, with + being syntax.
3, 4, 5, etc., all numbers.
10 <- the base system we use (don't ask yet).
<- special constant for doing math with circles.
As an example, 5*5 is 25. Multiplication is sort of like addition (+) repeated a number of times. Now we can teach you algebra.
This is an equation stating that x is 2. We can use x in a formula in place of 2 now.
Putting in 2 for x, we get 3*2, or 6, +5, or 11, which is not the same as 8. Oops! We have to find the actual value for x now. Let's call it y for simplicity, since we already know x is supposed to be 2.
We know 3y is five below 8 because any equation can be supplemented with an operation on both sides to produce an equation with equivalent truth value, in this case, we can subtract five from each side and get 3y+5-5 = 8-5, or 3y+0 = 3. Further, if we divide both sides we get 3y/3 = 3/3, or y = 1.
Algebra can get pretty complicate but all you're doing is using logic to rearrange equation until you can tell what the value of all the variables are. This probably doesn't make a lot of sense yet, but we can't gotten to trigonometry so nothing will.
This is the most important formula you'll ever learn. It used the additive index, the multiplicative inverse, the base of natural logarithms, and a funny constant that we just call . That's all of math. Raising a number to an exponent will open up a lot of the more complex forms of calculus, but you should stick with algebra until you feel like you can grasp why the equation for a circle works the way it does. Linear equations are just order 1 polynomials. Start there. Algebra is simple.
