I’m currently working my way through re-learning Algebra. It’s a much-needed review, as I haven’t taken any formal math in about 15 years. My goal in math is to eventually be able to study signals and systems and understand how DSP truly works. I’m an audio engineer, so I also have a lot of use for basic trig, but I want to dive much deeper into trigonometry. To me, trig is a tool to study periodicity and the relationship between multiple periodic phenomena. More simply put, it seems a hell of a lot more interesting than some of the algebra I’m doing now, and I want to learn the two in parallel.

How lost will I really be exploring deeper concepts in trig without first solidifying my foundation in algebra?