{"slug": "math-academy", "name": "Math Academy", "category": "other", "category_name": "Other software", "description": "Adaptive online math course that teaches through problems and spaced repetition.", "recommenders": 5, "commenters": 6, "warners": 0, "score": 5.056, "rising": 2.35, "first": "2026-06-08", "latest": "2026-09-26", "why": "HN commenters recommend it as a high-value paid resource for self-studying math, from high school trig through multivariable calculus, using repeated, interleaved problems in a spaced-repetition style.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 5, "neutral": 1, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 1, 2, 0], "listed": true, "loved": ["Worth paying for", "Habit forming"], "caveat": "Can get boring", "short_quote": "Easily the most valuable learning resource I've ever spent money on. Highly recommend.", "icon": true, "domain": "mathacademy.com", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.mathacademy.com", "pricing": "paid", "aliases": ["Math Academy"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters recommend it as a high-value paid resource for self-studying math", "cites": [{"id": 797751584, "item_id": 49859474, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49859474", "by": "tptacek", "date": "2026-09-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Easily the most valuable learning resource I've ever spent money on. Highly recommend.", "excerpt": "I'm a broken record on how valuable I found Math Academy to be; 22,000 XP in roughly a year, going from high school trig (and a grim confrontation with my intuitive ability to work with fractions) through multivariable calculus. The most important thing to understand about Math Academy is that it's all problems, problems over and over again, with just enough pedagogy to get you from one kind of problem to the next. I", "context": "self-studying math, high school trig through multivariable calculus", "use_case": "self-studying math", "switched_from": "", "story": "Reflections on 1,000 Days of Math"}, {"id": 785529744, "item_id": 49095609, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49095609", "by": "Douger", "date": "2026-07-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "After a quick look I signed up and it is fantastic - exactly what I wanted.", "excerpt": "Massive thank you for the introduction to Math Academy. After a quick look I signed up and it is fantastic - exactly what I wanted. I'll take a look at AlgoTutor in the future :)", "context": "", "use_case": "learning math", "switched_from": "", "story": "LearnVector \u2013 Andrew Ng's AI company building one\u2011to\u2011one learning experiences"}, {"id": 790130576, "item_id": 49383161, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49383161", "by": "delichon", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Last year I used it to get back up to speed on high school math before teaching it.", "excerpt": "> During the 1L year, the value of effortful struggle, even with concepts that are second nature to experienced lawyers, is paramount. I'm not Marxist but I support the class struggle. I certainly agree with the necessity of not allowing students to offload their cognition to AI tools. But long term I think there is a great opportunity to leverage AI to be a huge benefit for everyone what is now mostly limited to the", "context": "teaching high school math", "use_case": "math tutoring", "switched_from": "", "story": "Berkeley Law prohibits AI use in classes (by default)"}]}, {"text": ", from high school trig through multivariable calculus, using repeated, interleaved problems in a spaced-repetition style.", "cites": [{"id": 797751584, "item_id": 49859474, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49859474", "by": "tptacek", "date": "2026-09-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Easily the most valuable learning resource I've ever spent money on. Highly recommend.", "excerpt": "I'm a broken record on how valuable I found Math Academy to be; 22,000 XP in roughly a year, going from high school trig (and a grim confrontation with my intuitive ability to work with fractions) through multivariable calculus. The most important thing to understand about Math Academy is that it's all problems, problems over and over again, with just enough pedagogy to get you from one kind of problem to the next. I", "context": "self-studying math, high school trig through multivariable calculus", "use_case": "self-studying math", "switched_from": "", "story": "Reflections on 1,000 Days of Math"}]}, {"text": " The one complaint raised is that the routine can get boring, which led one commenter to switch to an LLM-based curriculum.", "cites": [{"id": 775147297, "item_id": 48446706, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48446706", "by": "te_chris", "date": "2026-06-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "a full curriculum based on Math Academy (which I was doing before but got bored of)", "excerpt": "Nice. I've got Claude code teaching me maths at the moment. Some skills, file system learning log, oss text books and a full curriculum based on Math Academy (which I was doing before but got bored of) and UK high school and university. Teaching me concept-first though. So we start with something complex and go up and down until I get it all. It's not necessarily thorough for everything, but the depth of my intuition", "context": "", "use_case": "learning maths", "switched_from": "Math Academy", "story": "Show HN: Lathe \u2013 Use LLMs to learn a new domain, not skip past it"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Worth paying for", "summary": "Commenters call it highly valuable and exactly what they wanted.", "quotes": [{"id": 797751584, "item_id": 49859474, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49859474", "by": "tptacek", "date": "2026-09-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Easily the most valuable learning resource I've ever spent money on. Highly recommend.", "excerpt": "I'm a broken record on how valuable I found Math Academy to be; 22,000 XP in roughly a year, going from high school trig (and a grim confrontation with my intuitive ability to work with fractions) through multivariable calculus. The most important thing to understand about Math Academy is that it's all problems, problems over and over again, with just enough pedagogy to get you from one kind of problem to the next. I", "context": "self-studying math, high school trig through multivariable calculus", "use_case": "self-studying math", "switched_from": "", "story": "Reflections on 1,000 Days of Math"}, {"id": 785529744, "item_id": 49095609, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49095609", "by": "Douger", "date": "2026-07-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "After a quick look I signed up and it is fantastic - exactly what I wanted.", "excerpt": "Massive thank you for the introduction to Math Academy. After a quick look I signed up and it is fantastic - exactly what I wanted. I'll take a look at AlgoTutor in the future :)", "context": "", "use_case": "learning math", "switched_from": "", "story": "LearnVector \u2013 Andrew Ng's AI company building one\u2011to\u2011one learning experiences"}, {"id": 790130576, "item_id": 49383161, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49383161", "by": "delichon", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Last year I used it to get back up to speed on high school math before teaching it.", "excerpt": "> During the 1L year, the value of effortful struggle, even with concepts that are second nature to experienced lawyers, is paramount. I'm not Marxist but I support the class struggle. I certainly agree with the necessity of not allowing students to offload their cognition to AI tools. But long term I think there is a great opportunity to leverage AI to be a huge benefit for everyone what is now mostly limited to the", "context": "teaching high school math", "use_case": "math tutoring", "switched_from": "", "story": "Berkeley Law prohibits AI use in classes (by default)"}]}, {"label": "Habit forming", "summary": "Users describe daily use and say they enjoy it as a hobby.", "quotes": [{"id": 793206752, "item_id": 49575422, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49575422", "by": "melvinroest", "date": "2026-09-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "recently I'm hitting my stride on Math Academy", "excerpt": "I posted this because recently I'm hitting my stride on Math Academy [1, 2]. So I got a bit curious about the people behind it. Turns out, I'm now questioning: how fast can I learn things really? Because if kids can go this far. Then how far could I go? How far could we all go? Also: I'm having a blast, quite literally. Love raving while mathing, it's my new favorite hobby. Shout out to Nigel Good. Nigel sure know's ", "context": "", "use_case": "learning math", "switched_from": "", "story": "Math Academy Eurisko, 5 Yrs Ltr: Student Outcomes from High School Math/CS Track"}, {"id": 785503777, "item_id": 49093986, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49093986", "by": "zuzuleinen", "date": "2026-07-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "As a daily user of Anki and Math Academy", "excerpt": "As a daily user of Anki and Math Academy, I'm very excited about how software can help us learn. Now, with AI, we can really build tools that were not possible before. I built for myself AlgoTutor[1], a CLI tool that teaches Go developers algorithmic skills and concurrency. The recent Understanding floating point[2] from Oz Nova is also a type of tutorial I want to see more often. [1] https://github.com/zuzuleinen/al", "context": "", "use_case": "learning math", "switched_from": "", "story": "LearnVector \u2013 Andrew Ng's AI company building one\u2011to\u2011one learning experiences"}]}, {"label": "Problem-based practice", "summary": "It teaches mainly through problems, with spaced repetition and interleaved topics.", "quotes": [{"id": 797751584, "item_id": 49859474, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49859474", "by": "tptacek", "date": "2026-09-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Easily the most valuable learning resource I've ever spent money on. Highly recommend.", "excerpt": "I'm a broken record on how valuable I found Math Academy to be; 22,000 XP in roughly a year, going from high school trig (and a grim confrontation with my intuitive ability to work with fractions) through multivariable calculus. The most important thing to understand about Math Academy is that it's all problems, problems over and over again, with just enough pedagogy to get you from one kind of problem to the next. I", "context": "self-studying math, high school trig through multivariable calculus", "use_case": "self-studying math", "switched_from": "", "story": "Reflections on 1,000 Days of Math"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Can get boring", "summary": "One commenter got bored and moved to an LLM-built curriculum.", "quotes": [{"id": 775147297, "item_id": 48446706, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48446706", "by": "te_chris", "date": "2026-06-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "a full curriculum based on Math Academy (which I was doing before but got bored of)", "excerpt": "Nice. I've got Claude code teaching me maths at the moment. Some skills, file system learning log, oss text books and a full curriculum based on Math Academy (which I was doing before but got bored of) and UK high school and university. Teaching me concept-first though. So we start with something complex and go up and down until I get it all. It's not necessarily thorough for everything, but the depth of my intuition", "context": "", "use_case": "learning maths", "switched_from": "Math Academy", "story": "Show HN: Lathe \u2013 Use LLMs to learn a new domain, not skip past it"}]}], "who": [{"by": "tptacek", "context": "self-studying math, high school trig through multivariable calculus", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49859474", "date": "2026-09-26"}, {"by": "delichon", "context": "teaching high school math", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49383161", "date": "2026-08-20"}], "tags": ["for adult self-learners", "for refreshing high school math", "for teachers", "for daily practice"], "use_cases": ["learning math", "self-studying math", "math tutoring", "learning maths"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49092499", "title": "LearnVector \u2013 Andrew Ng's AI company building one\u2011to\u2011one learning experiences", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49816907", "title": "Reflections on 1,000 Days of Math", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49575393", "title": "Math Academy Eurisko, 5 Yrs Ltr: Student Outcomes from High School Math/CS Track", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49382614", "title": "Berkeley Law prohibits AI use in classes (by default)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48433756", "title": "Show HN: Lathe \u2013 Use LLMs to learn a new domain, not skip past it", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 797751584, "item_id": 49859474, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49859474", "by": "tptacek", "date": "2026-09-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Easily the most valuable learning resource I've ever spent money on. Highly recommend.", "excerpt": "I'm a broken record on how valuable I found Math Academy to be; 22,000 XP in roughly a year, going from high school trig (and a grim confrontation with my intuitive ability to work with fractions) through multivariable calculus. The most important thing to understand about Math Academy is that it's all problems, problems over and over again, with just enough pedagogy to get you from one kind of problem to the next. I", "context": "self-studying math, high school trig through multivariable calculus", "use_case": "self-studying math", "switched_from": "", "story": "Reflections on 1,000 Days of Math"}, {"id": 793206752, "item_id": 49575422, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49575422", "by": "melvinroest", "date": "2026-09-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "recently I'm hitting my stride on Math Academy", "excerpt": "I posted this because recently I'm hitting my stride on Math Academy [1, 2]. So I got a bit curious about the people behind it. Turns out, I'm now questioning: how fast can I learn things really? Because if kids can go this far. Then how far could I go? How far could we all go? Also: I'm having a blast, quite literally. Love raving while mathing, it's my new favorite hobby. Shout out to Nigel Good. Nigel sure know's ", "context": "", "use_case": "learning math", "switched_from": "", "story": "Math Academy Eurisko, 5 Yrs Ltr: Student Outcomes from High School Math/CS Track"}, {"id": 790130576, "item_id": 49383161, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49383161", "by": "delichon", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Last year I used it to get back up to speed on high school math before teaching it.", "excerpt": "> During the 1L year, the value of effortful struggle, even with concepts that are second nature to experienced lawyers, is paramount. I'm not Marxist but I support the class struggle. I certainly agree with the necessity of not allowing students to offload their cognition to AI tools. But long term I think there is a great opportunity to leverage AI to be a huge benefit for everyone what is now mostly limited to the", "context": "teaching high school math", "use_case": "math tutoring", "switched_from": "", "story": "Berkeley Law prohibits AI use in classes (by default)"}, {"id": 785529744, "item_id": 49095609, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49095609", "by": "Douger", "date": "2026-07-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "After a quick look I signed up and it is fantastic - exactly what I wanted.", "excerpt": "Massive thank you for the introduction to Math Academy. After a quick look I signed up and it is fantastic - exactly what I wanted. I'll take a look at AlgoTutor in the future :)", "context": "", "use_case": "learning math", "switched_from": "", "story": "LearnVector \u2013 Andrew Ng's AI company building one\u2011to\u2011one learning experiences"}, {"id": 785503777, "item_id": 49093986, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49093986", "by": "zuzuleinen", "date": "2026-07-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "As a daily user of Anki and Math Academy", "excerpt": "As a daily user of Anki and Math Academy, I'm very excited about how software can help us learn. Now, with AI, we can really build tools that were not possible before. I built for myself AlgoTutor[1], a CLI tool that teaches Go developers algorithmic skills and concurrency. The recent Understanding floating point[2] from Oz Nova is also a type of tutorial I want to see more often. [1] https://github.com/zuzuleinen/al", "context": "", "use_case": "learning math", "switched_from": "", "story": "LearnVector \u2013 Andrew Ng's AI company building one\u2011to\u2011one learning experiences"}, {"id": 775147297, "item_id": 48446706, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48446706", "by": "te_chris", "date": "2026-06-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "a full curriculum based on Math Academy (which I was doing before but got bored of)", "excerpt": "Nice. I've got Claude code teaching me maths at the moment. Some skills, file system learning log, oss text books and a full curriculum based on Math Academy (which I was doing before but got bored of) and UK high school and university. Teaching me concept-first though. So we start with something complex and go up and down until I get it all. It's not necessarily thorough for everything, but the depth of my intuition", "context": "", "use_case": "learning maths", "switched_from": "Math Academy", "story": "Show HN: Lathe \u2013 Use LLMs to learn a new domain, not skip past it"}]}