/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.10082924]

Master mathematician here. I'm giving you advice on how to be good at mathematics.

1. You might have this emotion inside you that mathematics is BIG subject. It's not. Stop thinking it as BIG. Rather think it as LONG. It's very long, but extremely flat and overwhelming majority of branches your brain might make wont lead you anywhere. It's not like roots of a tree. It's like long piece of rope and occasionally some of the rope strands fray from the main body. There is usually one type of freedom in math and it is FORWARD or BACKWARD.

2. You might think that solving mathematical equations is hard. No. You can solve a problem if you have done similar problems before. That's how mathematics works. Your job is to progress from simpler problems forward. Like building a pyramid. You can solve a problem ABC if you have solved the problems A B and C before. If you cant solve ABC, intensively focus and search for problems like A, B, and C first.

3. You might think that thinking gets you far in math. Thinking doesnt progress you much. Mostly what you need to do is move the subjects into your working memory, fill your working memory with mathematics thing, then forget all about it and go to sleep or eat or whatever. Fill your working memory. Then stop. Then return. Do this every week. You have to do it a lot, maybe 30 hours a week. That is a lot of mathematics.

4. You will get good in mathematics if you ALSO seek for motivation to do it. Seek to get rewarded. Use 20% of your time to seek rewards you can obtain with mathematics.

5. Best way to learn is friends and competing against them.

[Anonymous No.10082949]

>>10082924
>Master mathematician here.
>Best way to learn is friends and competing against them.
How good are you really?
Do you do research?
Mathematics is really a big subject.

[Anonymous No.10082956]

>>10082924
after i came across the Fibonacci sequence, math has never been the same for me.

[Anonymous No.10082961]

>>10082949
So you are using the "truth comes from authority" bubble of thinking. Me and my family are happy in life and I did it with mathematics (yes its also my profession). Big means something you cant see entirely or move. To me the whole subject of mathematics is coiled into a spiral forming this medium sized ball i can hold with my two arms.

[Anonymous No.10082965]

>>10082956
All the information in Fibonacci sequence is just a one sentence. Its a very simple mass and it is particularly poor choice of interest and uncreative.

Try for example a question like "what should a man do in his life" and see how this spawns thousands of questions

[Anonymous No.10082968]

>>10082961
Being an expert in Logic doesn't make you an expert in Analysis.
Fields of research themselves are very specialized.
I don't really get your point.
What is the core subject in your opinion?

[Anonymous No.10083212]

>>10082924
>I need friends to learn math optimally

I'm fucked. I will never learn math optimally.

[Anonymous No.10083255]

>>10082956
fuck off crank

[Anonymous No.10084377]

>>10082924
eh, good post

what do you work on? something interesting or just some specific obscure shit nobody will ever care about?

[Anonymous No.10084427]

>>10082924
go home larptard

[Anonymous No.10084750]

I want to fuck about with knots. Typically math is a pain in the ass, but I dig the shapes.

[Anonymous No.10084755]

>>10082961
Yes, that's great and all, but what specific field of mathematics are you currently doing active work in?

[Anonymous No.10084987]

i appreciated this post,t hanks

[Anonymous No.10085004]

>>10084750
http://homepages.math.uic.edu/~kauffman/Knots.pdf
Kauffman is a good knot theorist, and his introduction to knot theory doesn't require knowing loads of topology: it's aimed at the more general reader. He even defines things like modular arithmetic, so if you aren't very familiar with the mathematics, it shouldn't matter.