Absolutely! Any person willing to study and think can understand the above books. As i mentioned, they cover a broad swath of mathematics and are meant for the general reader. You can checkout reviews on Amazon and elsewhere on the web.
Mathematics can be approached in two ways; 1) For understanding 2) For techniques of usage.
The above books help with (1). Textbooks focus on (2). A very good succinct (< 150 pages!) introductory text for (2) is George Simmons' Precalculus Mathematics in a Nutshell: Geometry, Algebra, Trigonometry. It is available at https://github.com/enilsen16/The-Math-Group
One word of advice; most people's phobia of mathematics arises from not knowing/understanding the notation. It is just a shorthand language which you need to get familiar with. When you come across a formula, just expand and read it out aloud in your own version of easy English. You will understand better and lose your fear of mathematics. A book like Mathematical Notation: A Guide for Engineers and Scientists by Edward Scheinerman is of great help here. There are of course lots of free resources for this on the web starting with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_mathematical_symbo... and https://mathvault.ca/hub/higher-math/math-symbols/
I think I want a mix of both options you listed. Though, I suppose techniques of usage could perhaps be derived if one's understanding is sufficient.
> most people's phobia of mathematics arises from not knowing/understanding the notation.
That does describe me at times. I have found Wikipedia to be a poor resource on math topics because it tends to get quite complex rather quickly. For example, take a look at this section on Wikipedia:
I can understand everything until the series notion starts. From that point on, I have no idea what any of that means.
I am going to pick of those books though. My interest is piqued.
Also, do you happen to have any recommendations for 'Proofs for Idiots?' I have realized that I like starting with proof's to some degree and working up the stack. I got in this habit when I tried to work through the "Algorthim Design Manual" by Skiena. The book began with trying to prove various algorithms, and I found that to be a great way to approach the topic. It was like the missing part of my Data Structures and Algorithms course in College.
You have to understand that a lot of my math education was taught by people that probably did not understand the topics well themselves. I grew up with a lot of questions I had in math being answered with, "Well, that's just the way things are" or "because the formula states <insert whatever>." College changed my opinion because I had a professors who started to get me to ask the questions of "Why?" For me, that was always the missing piece of enjoyment.
If one wants to study Mathematics (or any Science for that matter) sincerely, one has to put in conscious self-effort/time/be-persistent and have the attitude of "knowledge for the sake of knowledge". The goal should be personal development/understanding and not competition/ego-boosting/fame/money/etc. (these are only relevant for the job market) which will not sustain motivation over the long-term. The emphasis should be on one's self-effort and not on the merits/demerits of the Professor/Teacher/Books i.e. "The Master can only show the way, but it is the Student who must walk the path".
Also Mathematics should be approached from multiple perspectives including (but not limited to) Imagination, Conceptual, Graphical, Symbolic, Applications, Modeling, Sets/Relations/Definition/Theorem/Proof.
As i mentioned, for studying Mathematics you need both 1) Overview/General books which help in building interdisciplinary intuition/insight and 2) Textbooks which teach methods/tools and put them to use in solving real-world problems. You will find plenty of recommendations for textbooks both on HN and elsewhere on the web (especially college/university websites).
One excellent must-have book that straddles both is; Mathematics: Its Content, Methods and Meaning by Aleksandrov/Kolmogorov/Lavrent'ev. It covers almost all domains of mathematics until the early 20th century in an introductory succinct form up to undergraduate level. You can then look for individual textbooks for each of the domains given there. See the ToC at - https://store.doverpublications.com/products/9780486157870
W.r.t. books on Proofs, my first suggestion would be to not focus too much on the formal mechanics of it but try to understand the reasoning/logic behind it in a informal way i.e. the "proof idea" problem-solving process.
The first book to read here is George Polya's classic; How To Solve It. It gives a problem-solving process with heuristics and thumbrules which is the prerequisite to mathematical formalization - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Solve_It
With the problem-solving process in hand, you can now get a gentle introduction to Logic/Discrete Maths leading to Proofs. One very accessible book with broad coverage and a bent towards CS is Nimal Nissanke's Introductory Logic and Sets for Computer Scientists. The author wrote it as the needed background mathematics for formal methods and hence contains everything (including doing Proofs) within one pair of covers - https://www.amazon.com/Introductory-Computer-Scientists-Inte...
I highly recommend getting all of the above before looking for more. Given your background (as i understood it) i think this would be the best and easiest path.
