The Joy of Discovering Math
Try to discover things for yourself. Let yourself struggle - really struggle - before seeing the answer. Whether you successfully solve the problem yourself or not, the solution will be so much more satisfying.
Below is a passage from Knuth’s book Surreal Numbers. It’s the most insightful and self-aware description of the asymmetry between discovering math for yourself and “being taught” math that I’ve ever seen:
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I noticed that the advice embedded in the passage above aligns almost perfectly with how Po-Shen Loh describes how he taught himself math in the following clip: