In a slightly unusual move, having done A-level maths and A-level further maths in 1981, and not looked at the subject since 1982 (a few weeks of a uni course; I bailed out into doing a languages degree instead), I'm now inspired to start re-learning maths to that level from scratch again over the next two years. This is due to having always kind of thought "what if" I'd stuck at the maths back in 1982. It also may be connected to a slightly "The Good Life" moment of chucking in my very well paid job as a lawyer to do something utterly different. Not grow vegetables in my back garden, but cultivate theorems and lemmas in the soil of my brain. And my missus has a definite touch of the 1970s Felicity Kendall mischief to keep life good. In a more literal vein, I'm hoping to go back to university in 2012 for another bash at a maths degree 30 years on, and, depending how that goes, to make a late start in some maths-based career. I love maths, I hate being a lawyer, I can just about afford to do it despite my alimony millstone, and it's a moment of blissful release for me realising I can do this.

So, to get myself to uni entrance standard by summer 2012, I've been looking at what A-level text books to study. I get the impression that the market leaders are Bostock & Chandler's books (Pure Maths 1 and Applied Maths 1 for the basic A-level and the corresponding nos. 2 for the further maths). But when I was a sixth former my school eschewed recent trends in favour of the WW2 era (Dakin and) Porter series which I remember well. I learnt my pure maths (to A-level M and A-level FM) from Porter's "Further Elementary Analysis" and "Further Mathematics".

Oddly, though, given how well I remember those books, I can't for the life of me remember what text books we used for the applied side. Something called "Mechanics" perhaps, but no idea who the author(s) was/were. Anyone have any suggestions as to alternatives to Bostock and Chandler on the applied side?

I. too, have been tempted to take this turn in life but managed to fight it back with considerable ease.

Good luck! No doubt one of the OTF swots will be able to help you out.

The goodluckfulness is indeed terrific.

I haven't taught A-level for ages, so I don't know what the cool kids are using these days. But I've got a meeting tomorrow with someone who does, so I'll ask.

I prided myself on my "A" Level Maths (B grade!) as to be honest I really, really struggled with it, and I think I got very lucky with the paper I sat. Even so it was by far and away the hardest exam I've ever faced. I admire people who can "think" in maths because far from the caricature of the person able to replicate a nerdy and almost autistic application of boring formulae, I've always found pure mathematicians to be capable of some of the most brilliantly creative thought of all. If anything it's your "creative" people like writers and artists who are often simply dullishly regurgitating material through old formulae; I wonder maybe if that's why they defensively need to describe themselves as "creative".

But anyway. Having, like most people, pooh-poohed the gradual decline in educational standards over the years, I got a bit of a shock about two years ago when I picked up a friend's daughter's "A" level maths textbook that she'd left in their lounge. I could hardly make head nor tail out of any of it. I'm sure they've added a lot more stuff into the curriculum that wasn't there when I did mine in 1989.

Pure mathematicians are, indeed, a race apart. I tried Pure for a while, and nearly knackered my brain forever. And yes, it's hard to imagine anything more "creative" than, say, Cantor's work on infinity, or Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems.

...............................um.....................................quite.

Cantor's work on infinity
Oh god, that went on for ever

...or Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems.Ahh, his great unfinished work.

Don't make me get all CP Snow on your asses now.

I don't want to create any divisions here, but none of this is adding up. However, that shouldn't take away from the....ah...forget it.

Lord Mauleverer wrote:
Oddly, though, given how well I remember those books, I can't for the life of me remember what text books we used for the applied side. Something called "Mechanics" perhaps, but no idea who the author(s) was/were. Anyone have any suggestions as to alternatives to Bostock and Chandler on the applied side?
I had Mechanics and Probability by Bostock and Chandler .. I had a great fondness for their books, the Mechanics one was a lovely shade of green, and that and the Core book (red) were both nice and chunky. I like that in a book.

"Which syllabus?" turns out to be the key question. The Oxford books have been recommended for Edexcel, OCR (the ordinary one) and AQA, but if you're doing the MEI syllabus there are special resources for that alone. B&C great as an additional resource (both "Pure" and Mechanics).

Why on Earth... wrote:
Don't make me get all CP Snow on your asses now.

does that involve snorting lines?

Thanks for the good luck wishes wingco and GO, and thanks very much to Wyatt for that info.

Wyatt, it's not really for any "syllabus" as such. I mean, back in my sixth form days of 1979-81 I followed the syllabuses (syllabi?) for the JMB maths and further maths A-level exams (the mention of which board incidentally prompts a pang of remembrance of my late father, a schoolteacher who was a French examiner for the JMB for a few decades). I'm kind of assuming, perhaps naively, that the grades I got back in 1981 will count now as evidence of ability/box ticking in a university place application, and that my challenge is simply one of getting back up to speed rather than having to re-demonstrate my eligibility. So I'm just trying to get myself, in general terms, back up to uni entrant level. Am I wrong in terms of my old A-levels still counting? Bloody nightmare if I am, as I imagine it is difficult (or impossible?) to get entered for the exams unless enrolled on the relevant A-level courses at some insitution, which would be an expensive and impossibly inconvenient waste of time for me. I don't need to attend a course, I can (re-)teach myself maths from the books, like I did 30 years ago as a sixth former when my group's maths lessons clashed with the French and German lessons I was taking for A-level.

I'm just disappearing now on two weeks' holiday (taking Bostock and Chandler's work with me) so if anyone gives any further helpful advice the silence on my part is not down to ingratitude or bad manners! I'll check the thread when I get back just in case.

I think most universities operate a fairly flexible (or to put it another way, inconsistent) policy with mature students; it would be worth contacting some admissions tutors soon-ish. (Maybe late Oct or Nov, though: they won't thank you for doing it while they're still UCAS-ing.)

If it turns out you do need recent A-levels, you can enter at a tertiary college as an external candidate, I think; teach yourself the content, then just sit the exam.

Check out the uni fees situation with some care. As someone who's already qualified, you may count at some places as "affiliated", and that can attract an extra fee.

By the way .. did you know Bostock and Chandler are/were birds? Linda and Suzanne.

Maybe this is why the books are such nice colours.

MsD wrote:
By the way .. did you know Bostock and Chandler are/were birds? Linda and Suzanne.

That rings a bell, actually.

Dreamt about them last night. I bought a new book I hadn't seen before and did some maths. This was a subplot, however, the main action involved my getting a pet octopus, and two of my popstar chums helping me to get a decent tank for him, whilst I kept my cat from attacking him.

Carry on.

( I don't actually approve of keeping them as pets.)