Steven Strogatz: In and out of love with math | 3b1b podcast #3
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- Опубликовано: 5 июн 2024
- Steven Strogatz, an applied mathematician at Cornell, is a prominent figure in the field of nonlinear dynamics and chaos, and a widely beloved popularizer of math.
Episode sponsor: brilliant.org/3b1b
Brilliant is a great site/app for being more active in learning math.
Note from Strogatz's high school geometry:
stevenstrogatz/st...
-- Books by Strogatz which we discussed --
Chaos and Nonlinear dynamics
amzn.to/3lFQjrU
Infinite powers
amzn.to/3AnvXIg
Unpublished appendix about Newton's letters to Leibniz:
static1.squarespace.com/stati...
-- Other things which came up --
Strogatz's senior thesis:
static1.squarespace.com/stati...
His first published paper:
www.pnas.org/content/pnas/78/...
Crick’s paper about linking numbers and nucleosomes with the memorable comment that inspired his experiment with the ribbon:
www.pnas.org/content/pnas/73/...
The 4-dog chase problem and its solution.
www.theguardian.com/science/2...
www.theguardian.com/science/2...
For a full solution with calculus, see Strogatz's book "The Calculus of Friendship"
amzn.to/3CyVe48
Survey for kids on their desired occupation:
www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...
A radical approach to real analysis
amzn.to/2VwtgF3
Twitter thread on what, morally, a normal subgroup is.
/ 1296211024534622208
Leibniz formula via patterns from primes
• Pi hiding in prime reg...
-- Table of contents --
0:00 - Intro
1:15 - Ad
1:59 - The perfect problem for a high school student
12:43 - Starting the Princeton undergrad
22:52 - The most beautiful proof
26:58 - What makes someone love a problem?
36:05 - Putting lessons online
41:57 - In and out of pre-med
47:05 - The geometry of DNA
58:53 - Using teaching as a means to learn
1:09:47 - Do students like history?
1:18:39 - The truth of Newton and Leibniz
1:23:29 - Archimedes, a true great
1:28:32 - Pitfalls of pure math exposition
1:39:03 - "Morality" in math
1:43:20 - An under-motivated culture
1:51:48 - What's next?
I feel like the discussion on group theory really makes me want an "essence of group theory" 3b1b series
ruclips.net/p/PLDcSwjT2BF_VuNbn8HiHZKKy59SgnIAeO
Perhaps not an entire playlist, but Grant announced recentlly he has sth on Galois Theory in the oven
Sign me up.. make a DAO.. anything hahaha
This guy unlocked everything with 808, Monster set video.. taken me months but becoming coherent what bits mean what..
Pariahs are vowels
@@saulberardo5826 where did he say that???? omg i sooo want grant to cover galois theory
If you truly want to learn group theory, then take a course. A simplified discussion will help, but It won't be enough for deep understanding.
In the end when he uses the words " I think my kids" and then explains that he is referring to his students seriously touched me in a way that I never thought possible from a Math teacher. Grant Sanderson please keep inviting these amazing people on your podcast. I am forever grateful to the work you do.
SAME !! I hope he sees my donation and the do not sell until 2027 hahaha.. they even have a better Metcalfe's Law ! nag him for me, cheers.. always so busy being a generalist lately as things just keep falling into my mind out of other things
Possibly the most encouraging line: 18:20~ "...I was lousy at real analysis."
@DSUM curious, where are you now?
Tbf real analysis will always be difficult unless you're willing to work at it...
continuously.
@@jbucata Please explain what it means to work continuously, and what it means for the rate at which you work to exist.
@@theswelldudesfishtanks7461 it means you must enjoy it.
the more you enjoy something the more you'll do it, and the more you do somrthing, the better you'll get at it.
so the amount of you enjoying something is directly proportional to how good you'll be at it.
@@jbucata The effort required to learn it is greater than epsilon.
Great conversation! I've really loved Strogatz' Infinite Powers book. I've incorporated a few calculus tidbits into my own courses, but mostly it was a masterclass on math exposition that was super helpful
Hay love your lectures as well
I would love to see you do an interview with Grant!!
Sir, you are too good and video which you created helped me so much in graduation, please do as long you can.
hi trefor
Professor I m learning letax watching your videos and now I m writing my thesis in letax because of you thank you so much
Damn these maths podcasts are so good...
Ikr!
Yeah, and this is weird who thought a podcast about math would work.
YES
Mind-blowing!
"Make the reader love fall in love with the question." -- That's incredible writing advice!
There’s a quote from the Little Prince that is apt:
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
This is such insanely good content. I found myself smiling at things that I never thought I'd even enjoy a discussion of so much..This is probably one of the best things I've ever seen in my life.
Sincerely one of the most delightful conversations I've ever heard with transformative potential
36:57 "The knowledge is free."
Totally agree.
This was one of the best 2 hours I've ever spent. words fail to express how grateful I am for both of you for what you do, especially the content you publish for free. Mr. grant, I'm just a 17 y/o student and I really had to sell some old books to buy myself a bright lamp but if I ever gotten rich, I promise you you're getting your share out of my fortune.
👍
Grant, two years ago I was aimlessly wandering through my undergraduate. Though I had loved the mathematics that I had encountered, I had not seriously considered majoring in it.
Your elegant and magnetising presentations changed that.
I shoved my degree into two years, and as of three weeks ago I am embarking on postgraduate work in applied mathematics.
Thank you for the inspiration.
P.S As an amusing note I watched Strogatz series on Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos rather than my courses lectures for my dynamical systems unit. Strogatz is just a cut above the rest.
That's outstanding, congratulations!
Absolutely brilliant conversation. Steven's enthusiasm for mathematics is so palpable and inspiring. I was grinning the whole way through and at a few points I even had goosebumps.
P.S. Grant has always been a huge inspiraion too and a great interviewer to boot. Full of really creative and intelligent questions.
Me too, clapping, posting like a bot so much GOOGLE OI YES YOU keeps fking me over 🤣 thinks im those GPT3 text bots so posts are disappearing.. looks like all they did was add a rate limiter :( ignoring my posts about the impending scammer explosion for almost 2yrs.. priceless
We can't fail.. humanity is too powerful, our intention to be good just.. its all so obvious when you grow enough you see it, intuitively or practically.. evolution is relentless its just painful and slow, but fear is at the core of our ego. Fear of the unknown.. after all, what do we do, sense data ? most of it gets discarded. Samurai knew that when you focus on one thing, you unfocus on others - your FOV of your eyes narrows, throwing away more and more data every Planck tick. The amounts are astronomical but we get more meaning from the intuitive stuff anyway, body language.. detail/fidelity is NOT important, and if it was, we would be able to see fundamental quanta.. of course we can't, we perceive them to be physical. So we go optical.
The most intriguing bits for me are.. how touch, taste and smell can be combined. And how memory ACTUALLY works. There are a few cases where there is a human who doesn't get brain formation only stem and the inside surface of the skull. In those cases, sometimes the person is not diagnosed during pregnancy as an anomaly ! if you are, then you are actualized then as having that constraint - they are mentally challenged. Meanwhile, one who didn't even know until his 20's, has about avg IQ and works a maths related job
HIS MEMORY IS FINE. Memory is stored in "awareness" why else do we need to think about things in a structured way - and why else would CHAOS, entropy be growing in someone who is more and more fearful - old people today cannot interpret these technological advances, you get stuck in your ways interpreting data patterns so when something new comes along,... sometimes it is just too abstract ! voila we have the need to have more than 1 database. You don't grow up all in one lifetime just like maths isn't one very long class.
I remember studying graph theory and seeing the Watts-Strogatz model (how to construct a random social network). And I remember being struck by how visual it was and quite understandable. I was struck by that because to this day I still struggle a lot with math (e.g. simple proof by induction? Not me). My fundamental basis of math had holes, which I'm fixing 10 years later. But that part of graph theory stood with me as a more understandable form of math.
And now seeing one of the men behind this model it makes total sense why that part of graph theory did not have the same effect on me as the rest of the course did. This podcast was intense. The love itself (for math) that Steven Strogatz has was so palpable, I could feel it, I almost cried. To hold such emotions within one human being, holy hell, even Grant made a comment among similar lines. It's unreal and so cool to see in someone.
On top of that, the content was excellent. I've heard from time to time that math takes a different shape when you get to higher levels, and I feel that I've gotten a very nuanced glimpse at that.
Had me wishing that this conversation just keep going on and on. Being a sophomore, i can relate go to every single thing in the discourse and kind of feel relieved that ppl like grant or steven exist.
I've always felt that the college had a tendency to kill away my natural interest towards any subject through their formal curriculum. Exploring the subject on my own will is always satisfying and I do think channels like yours help a lot. Thanks Grant!
"Classes will dull your mind; destroy the potential for authentic creativity."
lol
Just like school
I still remember the first time I started reading through the complex system and chaos book he wrote, and was amazed at how easy and delightful reading a course book could actually be compared to all the previous ones I've had gone through. A modern day hero in my eyes!
This is edifying my soul.
Appropiate way of speaking given your username
My two favorite math people. This was such a great podcast and both of you are inspirations to this aspiring math teacher.
Agreed but this is a video not a podcast. 👍🤷🏼♀️
What a fantastically inspiring conversation
Two hours of pure goodness! Thank you!
All these talks are so enjoyable. I wish they were 2 times longer. It looks like everyone is having so much fun, everyone is really passionate and they all have great stories.
Steven's enthusiasm for math, combined with his great ability to explain ideas simply and intuitively is second to none!
I cannot recommend this conversation enough. I felt like I fell in love in math all over again. Thank you for both of you. Much respect.
This was an amazing conversation. That anecdote about clapping after the lecturer's proof (and doing it despite nobody else doing it) is brilliant. Love it.
These are the best podcasts available on youtube! I got goosebumps in all 3 episodes I've seen yet.
i've been waiting for this one!! I know steven strogatz was on another 3b1b video and i'm excited to learn more about him.
Thank you for giving us a podcast like this. Your videos and these podcasts have truly inspired me to move forward towards a graduate studies in mathematics
It's always refreshing to listen to Strogatz. That was a fantastic conversation!
Such a lovely professor. Genuine and kind....
13:01 this is me every-time I hear Steven talk. I don't know what it is but he is SO damn engaging and interesting to listen to. I can imagine how well his students learn in his classes. Good man.
I really love hearing about stuff that is completely unrelated to what I am doing but still has so much relevance. So much that has been said in this conversation is in my opinion directly appicable to art. Of course the aspect of practicing but also the idea that you get the deepest understand by learning about stuff yourself and by being frustrated and spending time. No youtube tutorial or teacher can replace that
I was listening to this on podcast app. Even though I don't see their faces, I knew this would be a good talk! I sometimes find myself laughing insouciantly on some parts of the conversation while commuting or in public listening to this. This is better than my music playlist :D I wished this was longer! Thank you, Grant for this wonderful experience! I'll definitely read Steven's books! With love from Philippines.
This is the best podcast i've ever listened to. Thanks for all the work!
I could listen to you two talk all day. Greatly hope for a round 2 on a future episode.
Awesome podcast! I have read Strogatz's nonlinear dynamics book and watched his course, but now I just realised I "need" to read all his books! Very inspiring!
Wonderful! Both of you are irreplaceable treasures and inspirations to so many of us! Thank you!
Hey Grant the question Steven was descrbing in 9:50 is a very popular physics problem in Indian physics books, question of Kinematics, it's thrilling to see Steven Strogatz being so excited about problem solving.
Wow!! I enjoyed every minute of this fascinating podcast!
This is such an enjoyable talk! I definitely would listen to this for hours and wouldn't be bored!
Listening to this podcast while doing my thesis work is such a pleasure.
Wow a math podcast just made me cry. So much humbleness and passion shines through the whole podcast in general, but especially at 46:26. Thank you Professor Strogatz for the story, and for showing people like me who love math but may not be so great at it that it’s fine, it can still be so fun.
And of course, all the questions and everything about this podcast series is amazing. Thanks Grant!
You‘re a very good interviewer Grant. I really enjoyed this conversation. Prof. Strogatz is such an interesting and inspiring person. Looking forward to the next podcast!
This is so inspiring. As an undergrad, I was amazed by the Nonlinear Dynamics book by Steven Strogatz. And the book was one of the biggest inspirations to pursue research along similar lines. I have come a fairly long way. And in the journey of solving problems, writing a thesis, thinking of jobs, applying, etc. I had somehow lost much of the passion that I had in my undergrad. This conversation just fueled me with a lot of enthusiasm. Thank you so much for sharing this. Getting a glimpse of such an original mind thinking about problems is a privilege. Great work!
Grant, I think it's a true skill to make an interview appear as a conversation between friends, yet allow the subject time to fully express their thoughts. Awsum job
Cheers Pete
Finally someone talking about Christiaan Huygens! He is so underrated. 🙌
A great conversation, so motivating especially about the aspect of loving the problem.
two of my most favorite math people...this is 🔥
These podcasts are great. Please keep them coming, there is a lot of good thoughts discussed in the first few.
I’ve listened to this in full 3x. Such a great podcast. Really learned a lot, especially about different perspectives/philosophies in teaching mathematics.
Bressoud measure theory book is one of my favorites! His historical approach is very appealing and now I got really interested on that one on real analysis.
A great and interesting discussion between two of my favorite mathematics educators!
I hadn't heard about Steven Strogatz' undergrad experience. I too absolutely loved math until I went to college. So many of the math professors talked about "the beauty" of this concept or that. But for us mere neophytes, it was much like hearing master chefs talk about "the beauty" of fresh basil without having never tasted it or eaten pesto or enjoying a great caprese salad. For me, traditional math education methods were very much like discussing recipes without ever tasting the final product or being able to employ improversation to create something new.
For example, I never actually grasped differential equations when taught by traditional mathematicians, despite having taken the course twice. I desperately wanted to understand it. I finally had a greater grasp after learning solutions as taught by electrical engineers. Applying the mathematics to an actual problem solidified the concepts.
Regardless, great podcast, and both of you please continue doing what you're doing!
This was probably my favorite conversation thus far!
i work on arrays of josephson junction and was so excited to see him at a conference on the subject before i even started to study physics.. It was a great little surprise as i was so impressed by his book on chaos
22:53 The vanishing integral around triangles was called _"Goursat's Integration Lemma"_ in our Complex Analysis course. I'll never forget its proof via nested triangles -- it's purely constructive and soooo cute visually!
This was a great discussion. Thank you for having it.
Absolutely stunning. Thank you both.
With regards to giving talks on material that is not your own: in a lot of science PhD programs they require you to give a colloquium on a topic outside of your subfield. In my chemistry PhD program we even had to come up with and present a new research project outside of our subfield. Doing so was helpful to me as a student, but also led to talks that were much easier for everyone to understand. I was skeptical of the value of doing this at first, but I actually came to love the project for showing me the beauty of chemistry in a new way and pushing me to think much deeper into the field as a whole.
Such a FINE conversation! Thank you, Steven, for your on-going awareness! I am sending this interview to my granddaughter, hoping to open some doors. 6th grade, loves math. Thank you!!
I have been waiting for this!
What a great conversation ! Thank you so much.
Remarkable. I was able to feel the way to do mathematics from what he had done and was very inspiring...
Thank you for the podcast.
As someone who loves math and gets excited by teaching this is easily one of the best videos I have seen on RUclips so far. Thank you for recording this discussion 😁🙏🏻
These are so perfect for background listening while doing problems, keep up the good work!
P.S. They are great on their own as well, I often listen to them just for my own pleasure)
I'm a graduate student right now, and have been struggling with the question, "is it me? Are the maths and I not a good fit after all?" Enough so, that I moved to the MS track in the 3rd year of my Ph.D. You just made me realize/remember, that it’s the classes, not the subject. Because I truly love this subject, inside and out, and I have since I was a kid. So, thank you for helping me to stay the course. And for reminding me, it’s university that doesn’t agree with me not maths.
On a side note, for my dissertation, I wanted(I still do, but I need to find a new program) to tackle something with a tinge(by which I mean a shovel full) of dynamics to it, and the protein folding problem was one that I had my eyes on. In particular, I thought it would be fun to explore applications of knot theory to PDEs(wave equations in particular) and maybe spice things up with variational methods(like Euler-Lagrange). I was between that or playing with graphs embedded on surfaces and path minimizations.
Another “good” fable is the one about why there’s no Nobel for maths. The story is, that it was because Sir Nobel caught his wife having an affair. This got brought up in my Harmonic Analysis course and our professor pointed out… Sir Nobel was never married.
It is amazing that Steven Strogatz started with the Stiener-Lehmus problem...the equal bisector problem. There is a lovely proof at the notes section at the end of the Coxeter classic Introduction to Geometry.
Enjoyed every minute of this. Such an important reflection on how people actually think to understand math. Having done a math bachelor I still always solve everything based on intuition, and only then *put on the iron shackles* to figure out how to translate that to a proof. I actually never memorised any equations either - I haven't even memorised the time tables! =/
Grant is actually younger than me, but I find him such an inspiration - especially to set aside the time to revisit some content to find those motivations or deeper insights.
Grant, your story @1:47:20 of skipping the lecture to read the textbook is exactly the same thing that I did for a statistics class. It was awkward when I had a scheduling conflict with an exam and had to sit in the professor's office taking a final for a class I had pretty much stopped attending 1/3 of the way through. I did something similar for linear algebra, where I supplemented what I was learning with Gilbert Strang's course on MIT Opencourseware.
Wow, such an amazing discussion! Grant please return to marking these truly great podcast episodes!!!
I finished the podcast and started the movie right after, just finished it too. Great combo! Thanks for the suggestion Prof. Strogatz, Jaime Escalante turns out to be a great inspiration for me.
This conversation was awesome. I had so much fun and seemed that you two had a lot of fun as well.
Such an amazing guest, this was a lovely listen
This is a treasure for teachers like us ❤️
As an undergrad going through analysis this interview chills me out so much
This was a great conversation! Thank you!
A bit late on my comment, but finally chewing through the backlog.
I just want to say thank you so much for this video and interview with Dr Strogatz. I really appreciate the candor and honesty of the conversation, particularly with regards to math education and math talks. I love math and was keen on working on a PhD in the field, but found that the formal jargon and rigor sucked all of the enjoyment out of the subject for me. Please continue producing this high quality content. I will be looking for your patreon!
Very interesting, informative and worthwhile video. Many thanks for the links to the papers.
I enjoyed every second of this conversation!
Hello Mr. Sanderson!
This was a wonderful podcast episode, one that I've heard multiple times: to fully digest some of the things you discussed as well as for the simple fact that it's very entertaining. I'd always heard of Stephen Strogatz around the internet but now I'm invested in his story and will be reading his books as soon as I am able to.
One suggestion I would like to make however, and I hope this isn't impertinent on my part. While I recognize you're still new to podcasting, I would recommend putting up images over the screen of your videos in post-production, like when you discussed the Zeta function. I really think it would help the viewers.
I wish you best of luck for your future work, and can't wait to listen to more of your podcasts!
Mr Strogatz is such an entertaining teacher and the way he isn't shy about telling stories.
I love how attentively Grant is always listening.
Also, insanely interesting podcast! Thank you so much for your work
👍
This is not a podcast, it’s a video🤷🏼♀️
no words just WOW, one of best talks.
Consuming and Enjoying... Thanks for making this Grant.
On the "morality" remark: Research mathematicians, at least in my experience, 100% think in terms of intuitions, examples, and "morally", this is clear. But I don't think that research papers contain "polished" rigour that removes these intuitions. I understand the point being made, and this is definitely true for many proofs one finds in textbooks. Researcher papers are often written with intuition at the forefront. If a result is published with an abstract, very formal proof, then it will be very likely that researchers in the field will search for a new proof, one that is much more enlightening.
That’s a really interesting perspective. I believe the same thing happens in CS. The textbooks weren’t that fun because they merely presented the final results. Papers are much more inspiring because you can see the growth and development of an idea.
The word "moral" is a bizarre choice, because it's really referring to an aesthetic judgment, but it seems to refer back to the idea that virtues like Truth and Beauty converge. This really plays out in philosophy, where the Anglo-Analytics (rigor) sneer at the Continentals (moral) because they're too fuzzy.
@@ricobarth It's bizarre if you view mathematics only as something which exists outside in the world. Bill Thurston used to emphasise, however, that it's not computers that do mathematics, humans do mathematics. Therefore, mathematics is both something that exists in the outside world, but also in our consciousness -- there's an important interplay.
@@kiran10110 The other thing to bear in mind is the following: Textbooks contain results that have been around for a long time. When you know something for a long time, the curse of knowledge kicks in dramatically, and you assume everyone knows this. In fact, you have evidence for this: All your colleagues know this too, and so, it is as clear as day what is going on. So new results are much easier to exposit than old results that have been known for decades (or centuries).
@@KyleBroder Do you know what an aesthetic judgment is? I assure you it's not just internal.
Great episode! I remember reading "infinite powers" in high school and it would be interesting to reread it now going into my junior year in university.
Great Expositors as well as great and humble human beings.
Extremely inspiring.
All of the talks have been great, and this particular talk was the best for me. Something about it was just so awe-inspiring and made me think about math differently. Maybe it was about Strogatz not getting perfect grades in school haha
great conversation! and great teachers, both of you! well done.
I hope you'll make this atleast a semi weekly thing sonetime. This was great and quite different from any podcast I've ever heard
Another great episode! I had a thought during "An undermotivated culture" (1:43:20). Would it be valuable for university mathematics departments to start a weekly "Expository Seminar"? Instead of being organized around a particular topic (e.g. Number Theory Seminar), this seminar would be for professors/postdocs to give a talk about their area of research in a way that is meant to explain the topic to other students/professors who are unfamiliar with the topic.
In grad school, I had a much more informal version of this experience that was extremely valuable to me. I always went to department tea on Friday afternoons. I'd chat with grad students and professors researching topics much different from my own. Everyone (myself included ) got very good at explaining their research through analogy and/or by relating it to more familiar topics. This led to some useful cross-pollination of mathematical ideas.
I can't remember the last time i saw you this excited talking about math! Dr Strogatz is the professor we all wish we had in undergrad
What a fantastic podcast, thank you.
Props for the great discussion of the "Fables" of math and physics. I've thought for a long time that someone should write a book collating these little stories we tell to students (maybe I'll write it one day) although I thought they should be called "Parables" because they often carry some small lesson about science and mathematics within them
One of the main discussion points coming up several times in this interview - the question whether it's wrong to carry over stories if there's reason to believe they might be just made up - is the argument for American Pragmatism.
This was a good one, I love these :D
Really enjoyed this! Steven is a treasure 😊
I caught this via podcast, very nice and far ranging discussion. I believe I'll be sharing this with my students as a way to kick off the semester. And congrats on the new endeavor. One thing that I might be able to share regarding the topic of Newton and decimals. A good place to start is Leo Corry's A Brief History of Numbers. It's not perfect, and leaves out the Indian contribution, but it's very readable and a good intro to the reality that decimals as we understand them were very newly "practically completed" in his time. The roots of these numbers are old, reaching sometime before 800 CE in India, but their development is surprising (at least to people who have only ever seen the finished thing) in its slowness. Islamic mathematicians made progress and began the combination of arithmetic with geometry (in the vein of development that led to Newton-there are other branches) in the Middle Ages, but these were not fully baked, even until Stevin. He seems to usually get credit for the nail in the coffin, but even his version is pretty stunted. It's not until logs, Napier and Briggs, that decimals become a tool for serious calculation, mostly just Astronomy as far as I can tell. Maybe more than the actual technology of decimal calculation, it was also at this time that the vast distinction between magnitude and number finally melts away. For Euclid, 1 was not a number and it's only when we get to Stevin that this changes. Anyway, Corry's book is a good place to start.
i love your new podcast. really nice to see a longer video also (almost 2h). i was a bit sad when you said you werent gonna make yt math videos anymore, but this podcast is wonderfull. im looking forward to a lot of great conversations, and for you to grow in your new role as a podcast host.
Who said I’m not making math videos anymore? This summer has had a number of side projects, but the videos will be back in the not too distant future.
They i might have gotten you wrong, I thought your whole "I'm starting a podcast, and inspirering others to make math videos" was you switching to doing the podcast
But I now see your title to the video, "why aren't you making math videos?" is a question to the viewer, not a question youre answering.
(also wow I got an answer from you :D I'm hoping to become a mathematician one day. Thank you for helping me getting a much better grasp, and especially visualization of some of the subjects I was having a hard time with)
But that is great news! Both fantastic math videoes AND a podcast :)
I love this episode!
in my functional analysis class, i fell in love with the distance between functions :)
Strogatz spoke about the most important aspect of mathematics pedagogy, where intuition should be the first step and rigour comes afterwards. It is this sequence of steps that makes a maths problem lovable, which would otherwise be so boring and senseless. The intuition part and the visualisation aspects of mathematics pedagogy is what I like the most about Strogatz lectures and Grant's maths videos.
Feynman on the "myth" aspect of the history he tells, from QED p.6:
By the way, what I have just outlined is what I call a "physicist's history of physics," which is never correct. What I am telling you is a sort of conventionalized myth-story that the physicists tell to their students, and those students tell to their students, and is not necessarily related to the actual historical development, which I do not really know!