I am a mathematician myself, and I have some of the same problems when learning about topics away from my experience, or over my head. Wikipedia is great for cherry-picking topics if you're already familiar with them, but math is a subject that really builds on foundations of previous concepts (arguably, that's all it is). Wikipedia's content organization doesn't lend itself well to "entry points" nor to the partial ordering of topics.<p>Until you get some foundational knowledge, math is one of the topics where you're better off using traditional textbooks than wikipedia. The information is arranged in a logical manner that builds on previous concepts. Unfortunately, most individual topics are better-explained in wikipedia than in most books. A suitable compromise might be using a textbook's table of contents as the order to follow in navigating wikipedia, but the articles also have the problem of not always being consistent with each other, in style, nomenclature, required knowledge, and point of view.<p>After about one semester's worth each of algebra and analysis, you would probably have enough working knowledge to at least not stumble around like a blind man on 50% of topics. My personal favorite analysis textbook was Rudin's Principles of Mathematical Analysis, however it's... not for the feint of heart. Seriously. It could kill a man. If you want to get the full value out of that book, you will be spending over an hour per page to make sure you understand every step of every argument.