Timeline for How and when do I learn so much mathematics?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
20 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 24 at 0:13 | comment | added | Rob | In some fields, such as medicine and law, it's a matter of knowing where to look in which book (now greatly aided by Internet searching) rather than holding all the knowledge in your head simultaneously. But in those fields your also expected to know the cases where what you see before you doesn't apply, the counter argument and potentially defeating it or using it to your advantage. If I knew how to apply that to mathematics I'd be good at that too. | |
| May 23, 2021 at 13:03 | comment | added | mgex | Well, I’m here as a junior high math teacher, with an undergrad only, aiming to get my high school math certification. I personally have felt overwhelmed being expected to know so many things from several math disciplines. But I have grown so much in trying! That part in itself has been exciting, yet I too have felt like an “imposter” for thinking I belong at this level. As I await the results of my cert. exam, I found this post while searching how people can know so much about math. I was impressed and encouraged by all these comments, and read every single one. I was surprised by the respect | |
| Mar 11, 2020 at 14:19 | vote | accept | sudolearn | ||
| Mar 10, 2020 at 15:53 | comment | added | sudolearn | Thank you all of you for your comments. It seems that I ought to pick a problem and solve it, as Timothy Chow suggested. | |
| Mar 10, 2020 at 8:58 | comment | added | epa095 | Be aware that your impression of how much other people know are certainly skewed, you don't feel their ignorance as strongly as your own. This can lead to imposter syndrome (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome). You might be experiencing an instance of this: images.app.goo.gl/miy1guRaWmZStQ8L9 | |
| Mar 10, 2020 at 6:29 | answer | added | Vladimir Dotsenko | timeline score: 7 | |
| Mar 10, 2020 at 1:35 | comment | added | Kimball | Elsewhere on SE, you can find this quote of Ravi Vakil: _...mathematics is so rich and infinite that it is impossible to learn it systematically, and if you wait to master one topic before moving on to the next, you'll never get anywhere. Instead, you'll have tendrils of knowledge extending far from your comfort zone. Then you can later backfill from these tendrils, and extend your comfort zone; this is much easier to do than learning "forwards". _ | |
| Mar 9, 2020 at 23:00 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Mar 9, 2020 at 20:37 | comment | added | Dan Fox | Teaching is a great way to learn broadly. | |
| Mar 9, 2020 at 19:59 | comment | added | Dror Speiser | Small comment: you probably can read Tate's thesis. I wouldn't put this in the same category as Deligne's Weil conjectures papers as far as needed background material is concerned. | |
| Mar 9, 2020 at 19:53 | answer | added | Will Sawin | timeline score: 42 | |
| Mar 9, 2020 at 18:55 | history | edited | user147650 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Mar 9, 2020 at 18:50 | comment | added | Timothy Chow | I will offer some slightly contrarian advice, as I did in another MO answer. Don't let yourself get overwhelmed with trying to learn mountains of math. Instead, focus on finding a good problem to work on (obviously, a good advisor is extremely valuable here). Then learn the math you need for the problem. You'll learn the math better this way because you'll understand the purpose. Of course your knowledge will have gaps, but that's inevitable no matter what you do. | |
| Mar 9, 2020 at 17:20 | answer | added | Gerhard Paseman | timeline score: 4 | |
| Mar 9, 2020 at 16:56 | comment | added | GH from MO | As my algebra professor said: it does not matter what you read, but it should be good and a lot, done rapidly and thoroughly. | |
| Mar 9, 2020 at 16:45 | answer | added | R. van Dobben de Bruyn | timeline score: 38 | |
| Mar 9, 2020 at 15:36 | answer | added | Alexander Schmeding | timeline score: 14 | |
| Mar 9, 2020 at 15:04 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Todd Trimble | ||
| Mar 9, 2020 at 15:00 | review | First posts | |||
| Mar 9, 2020 at 16:01 | |||||
| Mar 9, 2020 at 14:57 | history | asked | sudolearn | CC BY-SA 4.0 |