| 21 May 2023 |
 .mr.robot | Redacted or Malformed Event | 05:54:11 |
| .mr.robot | Redacted or Malformed Event | 05:54:34 |
| .mr.robot | Redacted or Malformed Event | 05:55:35 |
| 22 May 2023 |
 Christoph | What do you think about this quote from John von Neumann: "Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them."?
(There's a discussion here: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/11267/what-are-some-interpretations-of-von-neumanns-quote) | 17:45:53 |
| Christoph | I for my part like math because of the occasional Aha-moments of sudden clarity and joy, they are such a rush! They are what keeps me coming back, and I always thought that in these moments I understood something in mathematics. | 17:46:27 |
| Christoph | My 'strategy' to trigger these moments is to imagine having to explain what I read in detail, like preparing a talk or a lecture, find the best formulation. If I can't do that, and I really want to know, I escalate: then I try to pin down the problem and formulate a question as precisely and concretely as possible, give a minimal example. Often that by itself somehow unblocks me, or it makes the problem searchable, or I can actually ask for help, for example here. It's work, but it seems to me that it leads to understanding in mathematics. | 17:47:14 |
|  Aamid joined the room. | 20:12:17 |
| 23 May 2023 |
 jajamokki | Does repeatedly reading a section in math eventually lead to understanding it? I have a hard time grasping some concepts in my elementary number theory book. | 02:59:35 |
 Joel Sjögren | When you read the same stuff several times there tends to be a kind of subtraction happening, which enables you to focus on the remaining harder parts that you don't yet understand. | 03:27:30 |
| Joel Sjögren | But it is also true that repetition can blind you to the underlying assumptions, thereby disabling you from a full understanding. | 03:31:36 |
 mawhrin_skel | I think yes and no. Reading it over and over without breaks probably won't do much other than numb your brain. Reading it, spending some time with pencil, paper and some toy problems, then reading again does work better (in my experience). | 07:48:36 |
| mawhrin_skel | If you can find relevant problems with worked solutions, they are often great for clarifying how a particular concept actually works in practice. What exactly in the book is troubling you? | 07:49:56 |
| Christoph | That's also something I "knowticed", there's a limit to what I can digest. After a while a break is the most constructive way forward.
Also, last week I was sick in the throat, so I had some time and planned to read and think, but instead I was tired and unable to concentrate. Good health and enough sleep is a prerequisite. | 08:01:39 |
| .mr.robot | I watch too much nsfw causing trouble to studies. When I was young I read very carefully with taking time to each topics. How you people manage all this? | 08:17:34 |
 patched | Study groups give me responsibility to digest the material for a deadline. That helps me a lot. | 11:23:04 |
|  eden changed their display name from saezhe to eden. | 21:22:32 |
| 24 May 2023 |
| jajamokki | In reply to @mawhrin_skel:matrix.org
If you can find relevant problems with worked solutions, they are often great for clarifying how a particular concept actually works in practice. What exactly in the book is troubling you? Elementary number theory second edition by dudley | 04:06:24 |
| jajamokki | In reply to @erkp:matrix.org
Study groups give me responsibility to digest the material for a deadline. That helps me a lot. Very true I'm looking to form a study group or fine a study partner. | 04:07:16 |
| jajamokki | I felt like I had all the necessary prerequisites for elementary number theory but I think I am going to finish calculus and proofs first. I'm a senior in highschool and I just finished Precalculus | 04:09:08 |
| mawhrin_skel | Proofs are a good thing to have a grasp on for number theory, but I don't think calculus is really a prerequisite. | 04:26:59 |
| jajamokki | Right but I think learning calculus first might be a smarter choice since I need it for Lin alg and real analysis. | 05:36:16 |
| mawhrin_skel | That's fair. Real analysis is fiddly but fun. | 05:59:53 |
 Sean Tilson | In reply to @ser:matrix.org
@joel thanks; no other assumptions are made. The book is Steven Pinker's Rationality, and luckily, Google books has that brief section online: From the Pop science I associate with the name pinker: this is disappointing but perhaps not surprising. | 16:09:48 |
| Sean Tilson | * There is also the question of descent, which is _widely_ useful, and it isn't really in my area. | 16:25:43 |
| Sean Tilson | In reply to @jajamokki:matrix.org
I felt like I had all the necessary prerequisites for elementary number theory but I think I am going to finish calculus and proofs first. I'm a senior in highschool and I just finished Precalculus I think some elementary number theory can actually be a good place to work on learning proofs, after all you need stuff to prove something about.
Depending on how they introduce modular arithmetic, I can imagine stuff just seeming wildly complicated. Toy computations (like writing out multiplication tables) will probably help a lot. One nice thing is you can literally do experiments (compute examples) to help supplement your intuition. | 17:25:37 |
|  Nil Kraunis joined the room. | 18:07:05 |
| jajamokki | I haven't reached mod yet but I couldn't fully grasp the proof for division algorithm. Examples help but also the fact that I prioritize finishing the necessary math classes first before number theory. I don't even think number theory is a necessary class for where I'm going to college for. | 19:56:01 |
| 28 May 2023 |
|  @john..:matrix.org left the room. | 07:04:00 |
| 1 Jun 2023 |
|  @kribreken:matrix.org joined the room. | 07:33:12 |
| @kribreken:matrix.org left the room. | 07:33:40 |
