Oooooooof I feel this one brother. I let school convince me I wasn't special enough to be good at math then I realized, I believed them. No one is special and the knowledge is gated out to those who aren't elite enough. The gate is the hard work and willingness to learn repeatedly, like anything else in life. Ty for sharing this!
At the young age of 52, I am now teaching Mathematics at the local university as Associate Professor! It's never too late to start doing math My graduate education is in Physical Chemistry and I've taught Chemistry at local community colleges and I've since morphed into a Professor of Mathematics. Couldn't agree more with this video! I places your comedy videos on my Google classroom site and the older adult students who are coming back to school are laughing their butts off! Just thought you'd like to hear all of this! Cheers! K. Kennedy Associate Professor of Mathematics
"Sweeping Away the Dust Most in this world are divinities in human form Who came here in droves to learn the Way But, over lifetimes, our purpose was forgotten Blinded were we by the lure of earthly joys Modern thought and ways head towards a precipice Atheism and evolution wander upon the Devil’s path But the Creator hath come to save all of creation The eons spent awaiting Him were not in vain If you understand now, then seek the truth The Creator called upon me to sweep away the dust clouding your vision March 31, 2019 Seattle" Master Li Hongzhi (Hong Yin VI, from Falun Dafa teachings)
Nothing beats the brute force of just doing the thing! All my life as a young child I thought I was too dumb to learn math. In elementary school I would get C''s and D's. I barely graduated High School because of my math classes which I almost failed. I took a break after High School and then when I went to college I tested into elementary algebra. I tried to take it twice and dropped out because I was failing. At this point I was so sure in my mind and in the depths of my soul that I was broken and I was not smart enough to learn math. So I gave up and decided to give myself career options that didn't involve math. I ended up becoming an Emergency Medical Technician (no math necessary) and worked on an ambulance for a number of years. I then wanted to go back to school for nursing but realized that college algebra was a prerequisite. This of course was scary so instead of going to community college I applied to one of those super expensive nursing schools that will accept most anyone willing to pay. The caveat was that I had to take the HESI exam which had basic math and even that scared the crap out of me. This time something in me said, "You know what I can do this! I just need to study and practice over and over until I understand it. Its time to confront this fear of math once and for all!" So I got the HESI practice exam book and focused primarily on studying the math. Practicing the problems over and over again until the math became intuitive. I even noticed that I started to enjoy practicing math. Again, basic factions percentages etc but I had never enjoyed this stuff before! I took the exam and for the math portion I scored 100%!!! It was at that point I finally overcame years and years of negative self defeating talk. When it came time to sign the acceptance papers for the school I couldn't do it. $100k was too much to swallow! So I enrolled in community college again. Started at the elementary algebra class that I had previously dropped out of twice. This time I was determined, motivated, a little scared but excited. I applied the same principles I used when studying for the HESI to the elementary algebra class. I got an A+ in the class! Moved on to intermediate algebra and got another A+! At this point I genuinely enjoyed math! Enrolled in the once so scary college algebra and got an A+ in that class as well! I even applied to become a college algebra tutor at the school and got offered the job! For nursing that was all I needed math wise but decided to take trigonometry just for fun and curiosity. I know for a fact that if I can learn and enjoy math, anyone certainly can! It just takes some of us more time, dedication and patience. Consistency and believing in yourself is key and this applies to anything we may want to do! We are all capable. Thanks for sharing this video!
I'm older, took a 2 year sabbatical and went back to university in software engineering. I thought once that one young man was not working as hard as me for their grades. I did not really mind though, because I'm older now and not envious anymore. But I still wanted to know how he was pulling this off. So I just asked him politely... Turns out, he already had a mix major in maths and computer sciences. So, he "seemed" to be working less "now"... but he did pay it's due before. Which is the same thing for every gifted person out there... There is no secret, no shortcut... just efforts from other we have not withnessed ourselves.
I'm not gonna say I was "gifted" but I was good at learning things fast and better than anyone in class. Always got full grades but when it came to holding a conversation, it's something I can't do cause of severe social anxiety. I once made a fool of myself at school assembly, when I rehearsed the speech a gazillion times but couldn't utter a word in the event. So, it's not a bad thing that you're not "gifted" or not "good". I remember that I couldn't find the area of rectangle when I was in 5th grade. But now I'm a med student who took up maths as a hobby cause world doesn't pay mathematicians much. And yes, I'll learn how to talk to patients before graduating.
I’m so glad you realise how important communication with patients is. That is one of the most important aspects of begin example a doctor. Making them understand their problems too
@astiti5266 at first, I wanted to become a mathematician. But then I realised, I had a friend with genetic illness which is too unimportant for pharmaceutical companies to find a cure for. The hospital was a traumatic experience, so it should'nt be for others too. So I wanna help those kids, and prove to them that things can get better. And try to work on a cure.
@What-is-tru Give them a break, you just shattered their whole belief system. Who knows how long they were believing that thing to be true. Plus the same thing happens to me too. I'm afraid to tell them they are wrong cause I have a short stature and I fear they will beat me to pulp, if I argue. My heartbeat skyrockets and I get into a freeze response. That's where I only talk with 2 friends of mine who understand me, won't fight me if I prove them wrong. Gentleman, I have hit the lottery on that
I am an engineer, so I have taken a lot of math. I am one of those people with natural ability when it comes to problem solving, hence the engineering profession. Even for me, the hard part was attempting to learn certain concepts, where sometimes I could not understand the professor so I read the book or asked fellow students in order for it to be phrased in such a way that I finally understood what was meant. At least in some of my lower math classes, I was surrounded by students who either did not like math but needed the credit or students who did like math but did not have the natural ability. You are correct that they made it through those courses with passing grades but they had to work a lot harder than I did for those results. Where you notice the difference is at work. You can tell the one's who passed the math but lack the natural ability. It is one thing to solve a problem put in front of you, it is quite another to actually figure out what the problem is on the job and find a cost effective solution after that.
I made it through PhD in math, but I don't consider myself to be especially gifted. I'm better than the average person at math, but I'm average to below-average at math amongst my peers. The thing that carried me was that I worked more hours than any of my peers (because I had to). Moving up to grad school from a pretty limited undergraduate curriculum (They were stretching things just to provide one semester of abstract algebra, while students at the university get an entire year.). I really had to grind to get up to snuff. My first year in grad school was absolutely brutal. Most people who are really good at something don't consider themselves especially talented. They know that the hours they put in.
The Calculus Tutoring Book by Carol Ash and Robert B. Ash includes a line, “Too much rigor leads to rigor mortis.” Some people struggle with math during their teen years and earn an” A” in Differential Equations and can attribute it to a strong knowledge of the real world applications. There are many reasons for success in math. 🎉🎉
There is a great quote in my old differential equations text, Elementary Differential Equations by Boyce and DiPrima, that goes - Nathaniel Bowdich (1773-1838), an American astronomer and mathematician, while translating Laplace’s Mécanique céleste in the early 1800s, stated “I never came across one of Laplace’s, ‘Thus it plainly appears’ without feeling sure that I have hours of hard work before me to fill up the chasm and find out and show how it plainly appears “. 😅
3:46 - "Stay in school! Don't do what I did!" My father, a physician, encouraged me to quit high school. Sadly, I ignored his advice. Finishing high school these days has dubious value in my opinion, for many reasons I won't go into here.
Man, I’ve been watching your channel for 1-2 years now. I had no clue that you hadn’t graduated high school in the traditional way. That’s so motivating to me because I also dropped out in the 10th grade and got my GED immediately. I’m 17 now and have just begun teaching myself math. I’ve completed 3 workbooks front to back, 2 basic math books and 1 pre-algebra (toward the end it became less intuitive and I literally almost cried), now I’m onto algebra. I don’t consider myself super smart either, but one of the main things that keeps me motivated is something that you said, about how people who study math and aren’t mathematically precocious have to put in much more sweat to get through harder concepts, which gives them the tools to persevere in this field. To know that someone as skilled as you went through a similar process to myself is super inspiring. When I make it to upper maths the only people that I’ll have to thank are myself and you (and the authors of my books ig). You’re a legend dude! And your body transformation is epic!
Math takes exercise. It may take some more time to process and grasp certain concepts (me) but after a while it starts to make sense. Damn i struggled with basic algebra at some point, but eventually you start to see the process and patterns and muscle memory kicks in
6 months ago i didn't know what the symbols for real numbers or rationals was and now I'm doing bachelor's level mathematics lol. Not the best yet, but average at least.
I'm revisiting pre algebra right now. The beauty is coming upon areas of struggle and realizing my pain threshold for getting stuff wrong and then coming back to master it.
Sir, you touched on an excellent point in this video. For me, "math's biggest lie" was not understanding where formulas came from or which formula proved another. Throughout my education, I hated rote memorization. In high school, I would spend hours trying to trace the proofs of simple math formulas back to other formulas. However, this created a dilemma: which formula proved the other? After taking various advanced mathematics courses in university, I realized something important. Many formulas and expressions that appear to "prove" each other are actually just different ways of expressing the same geometric truth in the language of mathematics. That realization was an eye-opening moment for me.
I think that it's just easier to think: Ohh, that person is gifted or lucky etc. instead of comprehending how much suffering, how many failings lie behind someone's success. Math is no exception
Thank you very much for your wisdom, I am 19 years old and I am going through this, I would say that I am a little intelligent, but I am very weak, from the point of view of having the strength to get through the difficult parts, and the fear of failing from afar is one of the worst things I have been through and continue to go through, I know most of the right paths to follow, but I don't follow them, I don't know if I think I don't deserve it, or if I don't love myself or if I am just lazy.
In graduate school in the 1970s, I used to get up about 5 am, shower, and go to the Math Department. The dining hall was nearby and I would usually have about an hour to study before going to the dining hall to eat breakfast with some friends. That hour was really a good time to study.
I used to really get a high from exams. But to get that high I used to revise for weeks, and then still have to take a week off work for final revision. But even then, I didn't dare look at notes before the exam in case I "lost my nerve". The only way I got through my exams was by over-preparing for them. It was a kind of all-or-nothing for me.
Hey I really love your videos! And also since I am a native speaker of spanish I can help you a little with this, you see "El que madruga dios le ayuda" means the same thing you actually wanted to say, "madruga" comes from "madrugada" that is really early in the morning, so it means something like "He who wakes up early, God blesses him"
Secret to my success is I'm not averse to get stuck (a lot). Get good at accepting the reality of not understanding things after working for X minutes/hours/days of solid practice and focus, only to eventually realize that whatever you are working on will, almost invariably be something that you will look back on as 'not that hard' anymore -- OR, at least will look back on as 'something I got past'... It's like dark-souls milestones -- even with help, you're going to hit a lot of "YOU DIED" screens.
When I was in high school in the very early 1970s, my advanced math teacher had a quote by Newton above the chalkboard, that read “I Think On It Constantly” (from a letter Newton had sent someone answering how he came up with a solution to a certain problem) . My teacher said the reason he had that quote up there was because if a mind like Newton’s had to constantly think about this stuff, to figure it out, we could at least do our assigned homework!
I'm pretty comfortable with undergraduate calculus now, but I definitely found it hard when I first learned it. Sometimes I still get confused and blank out. Students seem to think that I should instantly know the solution to every problem they have, but I am figuring it out the same as them, I just have more experience.
So often it's the kind of things we feel we have to overlearn that we end up getting better at, while natural strengths can atrophy from lack of conscious effort.
I made the mistake of giving up in frustration with linear algebra because I was earning mediocre grades. Much later I found out the problem centered on practicing the problems, filling in gaps of background, and concentrating on the concepts instead of trying to memorize everything. It explained why I twice hit the 99 percentile in high school aptitude tests, yet college left me in the woods, not only in math, but in other subjects as well. I am visual, so the computer graphics which didn't exist in 1977 help me see those problems, but that was never the only reason for the frustration.
Math for me is a love/hate relationship. I love what it can do but I hate that I can’t see through the steps needed to solve the problem and the best way to solve that is to do the work and take my time
My professors would make sure that NONE of the problems solved during lecture or any other activity during the course would show up on the exam. It would always be from some obscure looked over chapter in the course material.
I was highly anxious about the math requirements to obtain my BS is Computer Science. I told my advisor about my anxiety about it, and she, being a Mathematics PhD shared with me the most helpful secret. “Math is hard, read the text book until you understand each example.” I received a dual degree in Pure Mathematics and Computer Science. I just had to work at Math every day. No magic, just consistent and focused pressure I put into the task.
Yeah I can relate myself to that. I was kind of an art guy in my teeange, and I could pour out passages of prose and poems nonstop. However, I just though of studying in math stream (maths, physics, and chemistry). I still can't solve math problems, but I know lots of advanced maths not just by heart, but 'by gut'. I have my own simpler definitions and interpretations of bizarre math concepts. Most of the math is intuitive to me now, but it makes me sick when reading even a simple hard definition (so-called standard) of maths. It's like legal writings I think. You can't easily read and understand acts of parliament and let alone write them. Otherwise, the content of them is so easy and mundane mostly. Same goes with maths. If certain conditions and perspectives are modified, anything is anything in this world because everything has to be understood by this human brain. Nobody is special, it's just conditioning and practising.
I switched from physics to applied math after my first year because I fell in love with the challenge. When I took abstract algebra and advanced calc I couldn't navigate the proofs so I would memorize the fifty we could potentially see on an exam hoping to get two of the three correct. I was in a constant state of studying, it wasn't uncommon to practice 10hrs a day for a week leading up to a test. I'd get up at midnight the morning of an exam trying to squeeze out as much time as possible. Needless to say I'm not naturally blessed, it was the greatest struggle of my life getting through undergrad, but I can almost guarantee none of my classmates outworked me.
i EXACTLY stopped maths because of the work. i WAS the perfect exemple of "naturally talented" in maths. as a kid, teenager, i was a math genius, never worked at home, professors giving me perfect scores, and telling my parents they had never seen this. and THEN, during highschool last year i lost interest in math because it was just learning by heart formulas and reasonings, and using them again during the exams. no creativity, no exploration, no understanding of profound relations, just learning by heart the program, and showing in the exam that you learned what they told you. i had still good scores, but lost all my interest, and never studied math after that. its a waste because i know i was passionate, obsessed with maths. i could have becomed an real math explorer, researcher and inventor. and school destroyed all of it. school destroyed one of my friend too, who did not finish maths university graduate for the same reasons. he is a real genius, creating formulas, and new demonstrations that have never been done before, his professors destroyed his passion, he dropped out. to this date he is the best genius i have ever met in my life, and i know a lot of smart people. and he lost all interest in university system.
Yes! I was a terrible student in high school. In university I studied 8 hours a day, and graduated with honors in math, physics, and computer science. Good ol' elbow grease goes a long way.
I was bad at math in school because I never did homework. Motor bikes were more fun. But I got by. In my thirties I had to do a math course as a prerequisite for advanced computer training. I discovered that I loved the math more than the coding. I became a math devourer. I loved doing any math problem I could find. It was like a challenge. The more difficult the better. In the end I was disappointed if I didn't get 100% on tests and exams. I was made math lecturer at my college.
I have a nice story about this. I was in Maths class - I can't remember now exactly what we were being taught, but it seemed r e l a t i v e l y straightforward - and one kid put his hand up and said, "I'm sorry, Sir, but I just don't get it. I suppose I'm just too stupid". Our teacher, Mr. Abrams, sat on the edge of this kid's desk and said, "No, don't ever think that. When you look at propositions like this and your head hurts, just bear in mind that some of the greatest minds in history have felt exactly the same way. They struggled to get it too, sometimes for years. You can get it too." He was a marvellous teacher. I still remember the look on that kid's face.
The bottom line in a generalized way is a person must have an interest in the subject manner and even better a growing interest (like Watson Fulks wrote) - without that you become ignorant and un-caring - "Don't know - Don't case" and that is OK for many subjects and issues. Besides - Like Ringo Starr sang "You gotta pay your dues, if you want play the blues, and know IT DON'T COME EASY"
I barely made it out of high school, and did about 2.75 / 4.00 in college algebra and calculus in a 2 year program. I've always wanted to learn more calculus, and after about 40 years, I finally had time to pick up a book. I've been working through Anton Calculus and finding I'm actually pretty damned good at it. The PROBLEM IS THERE IS NOT ENOUGH TIME IN COLLEGE TO ACTUALLY DO THE WORK !!!!
I just completed part one of Matrix sheet 30 questions in 5 hours I feel very good doing it ❤😊 Thanks Math Sorcerer. You videos are helping me. I just hope now that I'll build speed in solving questions 😅
@@TheMathSorcerer I saw Your Video And You Said That You made silly mistakes and you solve the matrix chapter till 2 am. At that time it was 6:30 PM I decided to also do matrix till 2am but completed all at 12AM 😁 I thought I was only struggling from these problems. But watching your videos help he realise that everyone goes through these problems who try. I'm able to solve one question in 6-10 mins I have to reduce the speed to 1-3 mins. Can you suggest me what should I do?
For me, it's a combination. I'd say there seems to be some real talent there, that gives me strong hints (that are usually but not always correct) about how something will work out, how much work it will take, or what is a likely way to tackle a problem (it's kind of a high-level view of the landscape), but then often (and especially always if there was no such hunch) it'll take quite a bit of work to actually get there. Another important factor is that math is interesting to me - I'd say that makes a big difference. However, I *am* a programmer. (Also some talent there, and a lot of interest, and some sweat.) (And Interest in the other STEM fields, but you can only do so much - well, *I* can, no idea about you.) Really, from my perspective, the interest is the most important bit. It's what keeps you motivated when struggling with something.
Sometimes I think it is how well the teacher does in laying the foundations of math... I couldn't get TRIG or CALCULUS until someone explained to me about THE UNIT CIRCLE...After that It gave me a better understanding about relationships..
I absolutely agree! I thought I sucked at math but I need to do advanced mathematics to calc 3 and I was super nervous especially once I hit cal 1, but I found after going through algebra and precalc a system that works for me. I got a B+ on calculus 1 and I was a low C kind of math student in high school. I’m 36 and started back to college when I was 33 for context, so you can teach old dogs new tricks. Haha
Isn't this the truth of everything? As Jack Sheldon, the great jazz trumpeter and vocalist was asked: "Why do you still practice?" His career spanned 60 years. He said: "I'm just trying to get good."
Hello, TMS. I love your videos. I've bought every single course (literally all 18 of them - are you making more??) I love them so much. For context: i graduated highschool. going to be getting military enlistment in a month or so because i want the GI bill. going to be attending community college in a few years. is it possible i can attend community college and transfer to princeton or some higher end school? what would be required of me? would i have to join MAO or math clubs? would you be able to give advice to absolutely strengthen as a pure math ba major AS MUCH AS COMPREHENSIBLY possible to get in? if not princeton then harvard's community college - and would THAT strengthen chances of getting into princeton let's say? if i essentially "hopped" from one school to another or is that a red flag? i see it as university's adaptation of LoL's rank system tbh lmao. or will this look bad? same as the "pick your easy professor" strats. suppose i join MAO. would you have any tips generally and personally for becoming as competent in math as can be? you mentioned you weren't a competition type of folk, i wanted to beg of you any advice if you believed it was a good idea. or should i even bother self with activities i don't care about? i concern not over societies, clubs, etc but they seem like a REQUIREMENT almost (we both know how power creep and skill creep in games - especially in LoL work. same thing with applicant pools and population's educations - what i'm competing against means i NEED to be doing every single thing possible in order to be even remotely worthy. what math organizations societies etc OTHER THAN the MAO would you suggest i join? what were the traits of the most successful students at your school clubs - when you were in school AND teaching - AND also, most successful not even limiting to MAO, but of your own personal students you personally teach. if you check back i texted you on udemy roughly 2.5 years ago as i had infatuation with math which began grade 11 and grade 12. fast forward, a ton of life unfortunates got in the way. i ended up doing for further context EXTREEEMELY poorly in sr year. like we're talking in quarter 2 i got a 0.9 gpa. not an 8 - that was a "zero". i LOVED math but other stuff wrecked me. i fell pretty low and very hard. but as of past day or so im getting back up and taking on the college algebra series - and doin the rest of your courses IN ORDER. what is the eta time im going to be getting completion of your courses? 12 months 8 hours a day you would say? if VERY dedicated as #1 hobby and i drop gaming etc? im 100% dedicated. believe me. i will do anything at any costs - cutting the fat (trading gaming hobbying for math hobbying) is just the start of infinite sacrifices. i sent you at the time an email i recall, but you never replied. i'm aware the overload and themes discussed may've discouraged you. my mistake was burdening you with the unsolvabilities and unfortunacies life brings, both of which out of your locus of control. now i'm better. now i'm smarter. now i beg your attention back to me, my situation, and your wisdom. i ask of your - ANY - advice to my situation. TLDR: applying to colleges, upgrading colleges, course completion. P.S: 1 also, where'd your forum site go? 2 also, can you please make more courses? i'd REALLY love to see a "generalized" course - where you go over your tips such as this ruclips.net/video/lrcIdmITMG8/видео.html and other various gems. 3 also, can you cover long division? i need for the ASVAB and you're the best teacher lol i ask YOU because i know you have very fascinating methods at doing things --- factoring - synthetic division - memorization - fraction adding - problem solving prowess. 4 what is the "track" or branches of courses i should take? i WILL take EVERY SINGLE COURSE of your's - so what courses should one start with? obviously not calculus 3 first lol... what is the path i should take? if possible, please tell ! 5 Are you still working on your precalc course?
I went to high school with someone who went to community college and transferred to Yale. She was really smart, an “A” student in high school and assume the same in college.
I know someone who was very smart and a disciplined student who was a top student in high school (I can’t vouch all A’s, but would be surprised if not.) She went to community college and transferred to Yale. RUclips automatically deleted my comment and is not placing your account name at the top, so tried again.
You definitely need some aptitude to be really good at maths even at a high school level. But aptitude is usually associated with interest in the subject, because the student finds what he is doing naturally rewarding rather than frustrating. As a result, people with innate aptitude are naturally motivated to do the work. So the real question is how to make it interesting for the others, so that they are motivated to do the work even without the natural aptitude. Fortunately there are tools these days - like GeoGebra - which can turn the roots of a parametric polynomial into an engaging animation and make it clear what the equation is really doing, to take a simple example. I did maths and theoretical physics at university in the early Eighties and don't really remember too much about them. But I now find myself about to start tutoring high school students in maths. It's fascinating to me to discover these modern visualisation and symbolic calculation tools and think about how I could use them to get unmotivated students more engaged with the subject.
Keep the pencil moving. I tell my students on a fairly regular basis. The first rule of math: make a picture. The second rule of math: make a picture. If you can visualize the problem, you understand the problem. If you are not given a picture, make one. If you are given a picture, add to it. Annotate it. The doodles help sometimes. (My third rule of math is correlation does not imply causation)
When you buy a math book always get one with lots of problems at the end of each chapter. And answers. Schaum Outline series worked best for me. I remember Murray R. Spiegel fondly. Laplace Transforms and Fourier Analysis.
The biggest practical lie is this ... seeing a beautiful calculation, derivation, or proof. And thinking the author did it on this one clean page. In actuality, many pieces of paper, eraser marks, sweat, tears, etc finally comes together. Only then, a clean sheet of paper comes out with the work on it...and it was done without effort and hard work and as if you knew it all along. For example, it took Bernoulli more than 3 pages in an engineering book to come up with his equation for fluids.
I think the main point is DON’T GIVE UP! Have faith in yourself. Sure, not everyone is going to win the Fields medal, but you can still get great results by practicing.
I'm an engineer by education but have worked many different jobs not related to my education for the past decade. Trying to get back to math and trust me it's not been easy. The proofs and mathematical calculations that I could basically do in my sleep are no longer instinctive or even easy anymore. So yeah, those who think being able to do math is pretty much just an innate skill, should just take that opinion and throw it in the garbage bin. I'd just like to add that your videos, motivating your viewers to pick up math again, have been a real inspiration for me as well. I'm starting with Trigo and some basic algebra and I hope to eventually get back to my level of proficiency from my college days.
I'm naturally good at math because I've got a high spacial intelligence. I can easily visualize the numbers in my head and do calculations. When I was in high school I only took Algebra 1. After I high school, I went to college and had to take a math class above Algebra 2 so I could transfer to the University of California Santa Barbara. I skipped over Algebra 2 to save myself from having to go to college another semester. I took a statistics class that had a prerequisite of Algebra 2 and passed it. It was a big hurdle for me and I did have to study every day for hours because it was hard, I didn't have the Algebra 2 prerequisite, and it was fast paced because I took it during summer school.
Part of me always gets enraged whenever the topic of "talent" is brought up. Any discussion about "talent" or "giftedness" not only detracts from the amount of work required for people to excel in these subjects, but it is also highly discouraging to people who do not feel as if they are "NaTuRaLlY gIfTeD" (whatever the hell that means)-that people who do not possess certain "gifts" are genetically incapable of becoming experts in certain fields-that people who are not "talented" are unable to become the best of the best in a certain field. Also, the conflation of "talent" and "intelligence" makes it appear as if intelligence is some fixed quantity when it clearly is not! We should stop venerating talent and instead venerate hard work!
Talent exists but it's only a propensity for capabilities. Computer hardware limits how fast a benchmark can run but improved computer software using a superior algorithm can indeed run faster. Humans are no different from computing machinery in this respect. Everyone can usually do better, stronger, and faster with practice but everyone's limit differs, based upon their particular constitution. Practice doesn't make perfect but it can absolutely get one much closer.
9:00 you have to be gifted to become one of the top 250 in the world. But if thats not what you aim to reach, as long as you do not have serious problems, you can learn math at the level u want to
I've been constructing a family Library for the last 8 years its full of subjects from Music, to Law, religion, and Maths and Physics; I'm currently enjoying Music, have a rough idea for my library and am content with its overall shape, I have 6 months learning guitar and I already know that it's not going to last forever eventually I will be content with my overall skills at that moment I know I will want to try my hand at Maths; I'm 28 years old if I play guitar for 10 years I know I will be 38, I'll travel for 2 years, at 40 I'm going to sit down and revisit Euclid and probably start with Set theory and discrete mathematics before I start algebra 1 and 2. My question is am I stupid to consider a math journey at 40? Is 40 too old to be a beginner?
those who seems to be naturally gifted in math are those who enjoy working on puzzles and figuring out how to solve them. They see the value of solving the problem that's why they are persistent until they arrive at satisfiable answer. They eventually become adept in mathematical thinking as more and more problems they solve.
Maths is a language that describes things. the more you use that language the more fluent you are. if you want to be good, practice, practice, practice.
In high-school i wasn't good enough for maths,,but i was doing physics at the time though i found that am doing good in physics than mathematics and its not too good for me and I was judge negatively...but later when I joined college ,,I am an engineering student and am good again for college maths than before in high-school and I don't know what is going on
Math sorcerer, I'm from México and i speak spanish, actually "madrugar" means waking up early, so what you do about doing math early in the morning is like "madrugar" Al que madruga Dios lo ayuda, i think thats true.
Wishful thinking you can get good at math without talent, like music or language. Talent in math, language and music are correlated. If you dont have talent you have to memorize a lot to compensate the lack of talent.
Yeah, and everyone can be a Mozart if they work hard enough. I can run like Jesse Owens if I just put in the effort. Look at me I can be centerfield. Sure if you have enough math aptitude you can be mediocre but you will never be Rembrandt, and that's okay. I will agree with him that doggedness with enough aptitude is overlooked.
well, i understand paradoxes and infitnitiy naturally from birth while nobody else seems to understand these things but it's true that i was able to explain what i was expecting this video to be about, real lies that are taught in schools, to some people so it does not have to be present from birth
Bunch of words meant to, what? Convince people there's no such thing as natural ability for math? Ok, make that argument for the millionth time, I mean it's been made before, and millions of times before, but that won't stop some kids in math class from almost instantaneously grasping something that other kids need to work for weeks on.
Maybe just start with something simple and maybe just do 1 or 2 problems a day and soon you will do more and more and get onto more advanced and fun topics
Natural talent sets the ceiling. I could live 100 consecutive lifetimes and never match up to Terrance Tao. I can become decent at math in my lifetime.
Even those two, clearly gifted, young girls who put forward those trigonometry based proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem, admit that it wasn't close to easy for them.
I came here to troll, but you are totally right, people think I'm great at math, and I kind of am, but damn I have worked my whole to get good, and I'm still working at it. I was so bad at math and I hated it. Now I love math, and I tell people they should do more math.
The gratest matematicians worked the hardest to sharpen there brains and thoughts, for example Einstein worked even years on some problems just understand and solve them, and he did never give up, meanwhile we do. Maybe we have to try harder.
Of course Math is hard! It’s not intuitive, anymore (the frontier-Mathematics isn’t; basic Maths is, for anyone with sufficient common sense: 2+2 can’t be less than 2, for instance). It’s not playing around with circles, anymore.
Its how many classes your taking. I'd watch the stock market until I was sick. This one guy was taking nine classes at once, maybe your super healthy like this guy was. But most of the time I just sat in the cafteria and worked on assignments. I'd get all mad and go ask why the problem was wrong. Draw up a superheterodyne satellite, oh that's why they glow. But one day, these physics kids all thought it would be cool to cheat. The oddest thing was I'd make oddball mistakes. Like in Calculus II, I really didn't know any better until I took it twice, but in physics I'd just mess up alot. This amplified when I went from JC to UC. Always for children, pizza shapes cafteria, climb a hill everywhere you go. The teacher would talk to maybe 15 students at the most, just dullard bewilderment everywhere. I'd dream I was late for face painting psychology for a month, "where is your Debrah classic for show and tell?" But in combinations I learned something from them, out of brutality of nothing learned. Its how many zeros you can store in a combination is how much information you can store in a combination. Thus the eigenvalue, jacobean, and free space, exists because you can define a set space regardless of a sets size. Which all their classes refute, its just a wrapper. Well money wasted I figure. It started off with the proof that things are inherently 3D, so I knew linear algebra was a scam, how do you put 899 blocks in 1201 blocks, this is a shambego, but now, behold, stuff is only 3D. So I started by asking how many combinations store two zero's? Its easy, seven sets store a chiral radix. You can store a padded radix, but this just gravitational, it has no need to curl or interact. Just each number 1-7 goes in a abc place. So for much larger numbers; 64-4096-16777216, you have infinite zeros storage in (a-(b-(-c(-d)))))= e. So, there's a billion little graduate ideas in there, but first you'd be stuck in closure ville.
I got 98/100 on my math exam because of your advice. Yes, indeed, it was only about hard work. From average to highest point in my class is just crazy
I'm happy for you
big w. awesome dude, i am ecstatic for u :)
w💯thanks for the inspiration i start calc 2 again after failing it in 2021 with a new purpose
Congratulations
@@antsywaves calc 2 is do-able! you'll make it don't stress
The greatest trick Math ever pulled was convincing the world that you need to be gifted….
Oooooooof I feel this one brother. I let school convince me I wasn't special enough to be good at math then I realized, I believed them. No one is special and the knowledge is gated out to those who aren't elite enough. The gate is the hard work and willingness to learn repeatedly, like anything else in life. Ty for sharing this!
Nicely put 😀
Yeah, I often know that I probably can't win but I still give myself an award for putting up *A GOOD FIGHT* . I always got awards ! 😂
The difference between gifted and ungifted mathematicians is intuition you have made a floating point error.
the same is true of the arts. Any one can get good if you practice.
At the young age of 52, I am now teaching Mathematics at the local university as Associate Professor! It's never too late to start doing math
My graduate education is in Physical Chemistry and I've taught Chemistry at local community colleges and I've since morphed into a Professor of Mathematics. Couldn't agree more with this video! I places your comedy videos on my Google classroom site and the older adult students who are coming back to school are laughing their butts off!
Just thought you'd like to hear all of this!
Cheers!
K. Kennedy
Associate Professor of Mathematics
I'm really happy to learn about your story.
Thanks a lot for what you do professor
"Sweeping Away the Dust
Most in this world are divinities in human form
Who came here in droves to learn the Way
But, over lifetimes, our purpose was forgotten
Blinded were we by the lure of earthly joys
Modern thought and ways head towards a precipice
Atheism and evolution wander upon the Devil’s path
But the Creator hath come to save all of creation
The eons spent awaiting Him were not in vain
If you understand now, then seek the truth
The Creator called upon me to sweep away
the dust clouding your vision
March 31, 2019
Seattle"
Master Li Hongzhi (Hong Yin VI, from Falun Dafa teachings)
"Mathematics is difficult, even for mathematicians." ~ Reinhold Böhme, quoted in Appendix A of "Vector Calculus" (2nd Edition) by Marsden & Tromba.
Nothing beats the brute force of just doing the thing! All my life as a young child I thought I was too dumb to learn math. In elementary school I would get C''s and D's. I barely graduated High School because of my math classes which I almost failed. I took a break after High School and then when I went to college I tested into elementary algebra. I tried to take it twice and dropped out because I was failing. At this point I was so sure in my mind and in the depths of my soul that I was broken and I was not smart enough to learn math. So I gave up and decided to give myself career options that didn't involve math.
I ended up becoming an Emergency Medical Technician (no math necessary) and worked on an ambulance for a number of years. I then wanted to go back to school for nursing but realized that college algebra was a prerequisite. This of course was scary so instead of going to community college I applied to one of those super expensive nursing schools that will accept most anyone willing to pay. The caveat was that I had to take the HESI exam which had basic math and even that scared the crap out of me.
This time something in me said, "You know what I can do this! I just need to study and practice over and over until I understand it. Its time to confront this fear of math once and for all!" So I got the HESI practice exam book and focused primarily on studying the math. Practicing the problems over and over again until the math became intuitive. I even noticed that I started to enjoy practicing math. Again, basic factions percentages etc but I had never enjoyed this stuff before! I took the exam and for the math portion I scored 100%!!! It was at that point I finally overcame years and years of negative self defeating talk.
When it came time to sign the acceptance papers for the school I couldn't do it. $100k was too much to swallow! So I enrolled in community college again. Started at the elementary algebra class that I had previously dropped out of twice. This time I was determined, motivated, a little scared but excited. I applied the same principles I used when studying for the HESI to the elementary algebra class. I got an A+ in the class! Moved on to intermediate algebra and got another A+! At this point I genuinely enjoyed math! Enrolled in the once so scary college algebra and got an A+ in that class as well! I even applied to become a college algebra tutor at the school and got offered the job! For nursing that was all I needed math wise but decided to take trigonometry just for fun and curiosity.
I know for a fact that if I can learn and enjoy math, anyone certainly can! It just takes some of us more time, dedication and patience. Consistency and believing in yourself is key and this applies to anything we may want to do! We are all capable.
Thanks for sharing this video!
Very Inspiring 😊
I'm older, took a 2 year sabbatical and went back to university in software engineering.
I thought once that one young man was not working as hard as me for their grades.
I did not really mind though, because I'm older now and not envious anymore. But I still wanted to know how he was pulling this off.
So I just asked him politely...
Turns out, he already had a mix major in maths and computer sciences.
So, he "seemed" to be working less "now"... but he did pay it's due before.
Which is the same thing for every gifted person out there... There is no secret, no shortcut... just efforts from other we have not withnessed ourselves.
Great comment, thank you !
"Efforts from others that we have not witnessed" Gold! Well said.
Thanks!
Wow, thank you!!
I'm so glad this is what you're saying. I wrote a poem once. It was called, "I do not worship numbers."
I'm not gonna say I was "gifted" but I was good at learning things fast and better than anyone in class. Always got full grades but when it came to holding a conversation, it's something I can't do cause of severe social anxiety. I once made a fool of myself at school assembly, when I rehearsed the speech a gazillion times but couldn't utter a word in the event. So, it's not a bad thing that you're not "gifted" or not "good". I remember that I couldn't find the area of rectangle when I was in 5th grade. But now I'm a med student who took up maths as a hobby cause world doesn't pay mathematicians much. And yes, I'll learn how to talk to patients before graduating.
I’m so glad you realise how important communication with patients is. That is one of the most important aspects of begin example a doctor. Making them understand their problems too
@astiti5266 at first, I wanted to become a mathematician. But then I realised, I had a friend with genetic illness which is too unimportant for pharmaceutical companies to find a cure for. The hospital was a traumatic experience, so it should'nt be for others too. So I wanna help those kids, and prove to them that things can get better. And try to work on a cure.
@What-is-tru Give them a break, you just shattered their whole belief system. Who knows how long they were believing that thing to be true. Plus the same thing happens to me too. I'm afraid to tell them they are wrong cause I have a short stature and I fear they will beat me to pulp, if I argue. My heartbeat skyrockets and I get into a freeze response. That's where I only talk with 2 friends of mine who understand me, won't fight me if I prove them wrong. Gentleman, I have hit the lottery on that
not me thinking he was gonna introduce Lie algebras
Same here. LOL
😂
I am an engineer, so I have taken a lot of math. I am one of those people with natural ability when it comes to problem solving, hence the engineering profession. Even for me, the hard part was attempting to learn certain concepts, where sometimes I could not understand the professor so I read the book or asked fellow students in order for it to be phrased in such a way that I finally understood what was meant. At least in some of my lower math classes, I was surrounded by students who either did not like math but needed the credit or students who did like math but did not have the natural ability. You are correct that they made it through those courses with passing grades but they had to work a lot harder than I did for those results. Where you notice the difference is at work. You can tell the one's who passed the math but lack the natural ability. It is one thing to solve a problem put in front of you, it is quite another to actually figure out what the problem is on the job and find a cost effective solution after that.
Congrats on reaching 1 million subs ! We love you man.
I made it through PhD in math, but I don't consider myself to be especially gifted. I'm better than the average person at math, but I'm average to below-average at math amongst my peers. The thing that carried me was that I worked more hours than any of my peers (because I had to).
Moving up to grad school from a pretty limited undergraduate curriculum (They were stretching things just to provide one semester of abstract algebra, while students at the university get an entire year.). I really had to grind to get up to snuff. My first year in grad school was absolutely brutal.
Most people who are really good at something don't consider themselves especially talented. They know that the hours they put in.
The Calculus Tutoring Book
by Carol Ash and Robert B. Ash includes a line, “Too much rigor leads to rigor mortis.” Some people struggle with math during their teen years and earn an” A” in Differential Equations and can attribute it to a strong knowledge of the real world applications. There are many reasons for success in math. 🎉🎉
There is a great quote in my old differential equations text, Elementary Differential Equations by Boyce and DiPrima, that goes - Nathaniel Bowdich (1773-1838), an American astronomer and mathematician, while translating Laplace’s Mécanique céleste in the early 1800s, stated “I never came across one of Laplace’s, ‘Thus it plainly appears’ without feeling sure that I have hours of hard work before me to fill up the chasm and find out and show how it plainly appears “. 😅
Just with anything, focus can take you very far, faster than anything. give focus a chance.
3:46 - "Stay in school! Don't do what I did!" My father, a physician, encouraged me to quit high school. Sadly, I ignored his advice. Finishing high school these days has dubious value in my opinion, for many reasons I won't go into here.
Man, I’ve been watching your channel for 1-2 years now. I had no clue that you hadn’t graduated high school in the traditional way. That’s so motivating to me because I also dropped out in the 10th grade and got my GED immediately. I’m 17 now and have just begun teaching myself math. I’ve completed 3 workbooks front to back, 2 basic math books and 1 pre-algebra (toward the end it became less intuitive and I literally almost cried), now I’m onto algebra. I don’t consider myself super smart either, but one of the main things that keeps me motivated is something that you said, about how people who study math and aren’t mathematically precocious have to put in much more sweat to get through harder concepts, which gives them the tools to persevere in this field. To know that someone as skilled as you went through a similar process to myself is super inspiring. When I make it to upper maths the only people that I’ll have to thank are myself and you (and the authors of my books ig). You’re a legend dude! And your body transformation is epic!
Math takes exercise. It may take some more time to process and grasp certain concepts (me) but after a while it starts to make sense.
Damn i struggled with basic algebra at some point, but eventually you start to see the process and patterns and muscle memory kicks in
Absolutely, practice makes perfect!
6 months ago i didn't know what the symbols for real numbers or rationals was and now I'm doing bachelor's level mathematics lol. Not the best yet, but average at least.
I'm revisiting pre algebra right now. The beauty is coming upon areas of struggle and realizing my pain threshold for getting stuff wrong and then coming back to master it.
Sir, you touched on an excellent point in this video. For me, "math's biggest lie" was not understanding where formulas came from or which formula proved another. Throughout my education, I hated rote memorization. In high school, I would spend hours trying to trace the proofs of simple math formulas back to other formulas.
However, this created a dilemma: which formula proved the other?
After taking various advanced mathematics courses in university, I realized something important. Many formulas and expressions that appear to "prove" each other are actually just different ways of expressing the same geometric truth in the language of mathematics. That realization was an eye-opening moment for me.
I think that it's just easier to think: Ohh, that person is gifted or lucky etc. instead of comprehending how much suffering, how many failings lie behind someone's success. Math is no exception
Thank you very much for your wisdom, I am 19 years old and I am going through this, I would say that I am a little intelligent, but I am very weak, from the point of view of having the strength to get through the difficult parts, and the fear of failing from afar is one of the worst things I have been through and continue to go through, I know most of the right paths to follow, but I don't follow them, I don't know if I think I don't deserve it, or if I don't love myself or if I am just lazy.
5:42 Madrugar means waking up early, so "al que madruga dios le ayuda" translates to god helps the one who wakes up early.
In graduate school in the 1970s, I used to get up about 5 am, shower, and go to the Math Department. The dining hall was nearby and I would usually have about an hour to study before going to the dining hall to eat breakfast with some friends. That hour was really a good time to study.
I used to really get a high from exams. But to get that high I used to revise for weeks, and then still have to take a week off work for final revision. But even then, I didn't dare look at notes before the exam in case I "lost my nerve". The only way I got through my exams was by over-preparing for them. It was a kind of all-or-nothing for me.
Love this, thank you. I’m going to add maths practice into my calendar. ❤
Hey I really love your videos! And also since I am a native speaker of spanish I can help you a little with this, you see "El que madruga dios le ayuda" means the same thing you actually wanted to say, "madruga" comes from "madrugada" that is really early in the morning, so it means something like "He who wakes up early, God blesses him"
Secret to my success is I'm not averse to get stuck (a lot).
Get good at accepting the reality of not understanding things after working for X minutes/hours/days of solid practice and focus, only to eventually realize that whatever you are working on will, almost invariably be something that you will look back on as 'not that hard' anymore -- OR, at least will look back on as 'something I got past'...
It's like dark-souls milestones -- even with help, you're going to hit a lot of "YOU DIED" screens.
When I was in high school in the very early 1970s, my advanced math teacher had a quote by Newton above the chalkboard, that read “I Think On It Constantly” (from a letter Newton had sent someone answering how he came up with a solution to a certain problem) .
My teacher said the reason he had that quote up there was because if a mind like Newton’s had to constantly think about this stuff, to figure it out, we could at least do our assigned homework!
I gave a very similar talk to one of my students this week. Thank you.
I appreciate your work alot man, you sparkled my interest for math again. Math is more than numbers, is the beauty of reasoning.
I'm pretty comfortable with undergraduate calculus now, but I definitely found it hard when I first learned it. Sometimes I still get confused and blank out. Students seem to think that I should instantly know the solution to every problem they have, but I am figuring it out the same as them, I just have more experience.
So often it's the kind of things we feel we have to overlearn that we end up getting better at, while natural strengths can atrophy from lack of conscious effort.
This was an excellent pep talk on math (and other) learning. Thank-you!
I made the mistake of giving up in frustration with linear algebra because I was earning mediocre grades. Much later I found out the problem centered on practicing the problems, filling in gaps of background, and concentrating on the concepts instead of trying to memorize everything. It explained why I twice hit the 99 percentile in high school aptitude tests, yet college left me in the woods, not only in math, but in other subjects as well. I am visual, so the computer graphics which didn't exist in 1977 help me see those problems, but that was never the only reason for the frustration.
Math for me is a love/hate relationship. I love what it can do but I hate that I can’t see through the steps needed to solve the problem and the best way to solve that is to do the work and take my time
My professors would make sure that NONE of the problems solved during lecture or any other activity during the course would show up on the exam. It would always be from some obscure looked over chapter in the course material.
5:29 in italian southern dialect is "aiutati che Dio t'aiuta". Something like "start by doing so God will send an Hand"
I was highly anxious about the math requirements to obtain my BS is Computer Science.
I told my advisor about my anxiety about it, and she, being a Mathematics PhD shared with me the most helpful secret. “Math is hard, read the text book until you understand each example.”
I received a dual degree in Pure Mathematics and Computer Science. I just had to work at Math every day. No magic, just consistent and focused pressure I put into the task.
Yeah I can relate myself to that. I was kind of an art guy in my teeange, and I could pour out passages of prose and poems nonstop. However, I just though of studying in math stream (maths, physics, and chemistry). I still can't solve math problems, but I know lots of advanced maths not just by heart, but 'by gut'. I have my own simpler definitions and interpretations of bizarre math concepts. Most of the math is intuitive to me now, but it makes me sick when reading even a simple hard definition (so-called standard) of maths. It's like legal writings I think. You can't easily read and understand acts of parliament and let alone write them. Otherwise, the content of them is so easy and mundane mostly. Same goes with maths. If certain conditions and perspectives are modified, anything is anything in this world because everything has to be understood by this human brain. Nobody is special, it's just conditioning and practising.
I switched from physics to applied math after my first year because I fell in love with the challenge. When I took abstract algebra and advanced calc I couldn't navigate the proofs so I would memorize the fifty we could potentially see on an exam hoping to get two of the three correct. I was in a constant state of studying, it wasn't uncommon to practice 10hrs a day for a week leading up to a test. I'd get up at midnight the morning of an exam trying to squeeze out as much time as possible. Needless to say I'm not naturally blessed, it was the greatest struggle of my life getting through undergrad, but I can almost guarantee none of my classmates outworked me.
"Time Is Tight" ~ Booker T. & The MG's
That’s what I say!
@@bookert2373 Play it, Brother!
i EXACTLY stopped maths because of the work. i WAS the perfect exemple of "naturally talented" in maths. as a kid, teenager, i was a math genius, never worked at home, professors giving me perfect scores, and telling my parents they had never seen this. and THEN, during highschool last year i lost interest in math because it was just learning by heart formulas and reasonings, and using them again during the exams. no creativity, no exploration, no understanding of profound relations, just learning by heart the program, and showing in the exam that you learned what they told you. i had still good scores, but lost all my interest, and never studied math after that. its a waste because i know i was passionate, obsessed with maths. i could have becomed an real math explorer, researcher and inventor. and school destroyed all of it. school destroyed one of my friend too, who did not finish maths university graduate for the same reasons. he is a real genius, creating formulas, and new demonstrations that have never been done before, his professors destroyed his passion, he dropped out. to this date he is the best genius i have ever met in my life, and i know a lot of smart people. and he lost all interest in university system.
Yes!
I was a terrible student in high school. In university I studied 8 hours a day, and graduated with honors in math, physics, and computer science.
Good ol' elbow grease goes a long way.
Talent is always a factor but it's never the only factor.
I was bad at math in school because I never did homework. Motor bikes were more fun. But I got by. In my thirties I had to do a math course as a prerequisite for advanced computer training. I discovered that I loved the math more than the coding. I became a math devourer. I loved doing any math problem I could find. It was like a challenge. The more difficult the better. In the end I was disappointed if I didn't get 100% on tests and exams. I was made math lecturer at my college.
I have a nice story about this. I was in Maths class - I can't remember now exactly what we were being taught, but it seemed r e l a t i v e l y straightforward - and one kid put his hand up and said, "I'm sorry, Sir, but I just don't get it. I suppose I'm just too stupid". Our teacher, Mr. Abrams, sat on the edge of this kid's desk and said, "No, don't ever think that. When you look at propositions like this and your head hurts, just bear in mind that some of the greatest minds in history have felt exactly the same way. They struggled to get it too, sometimes for years. You can get it too." He was a marvellous teacher. I still remember the look on that kid's face.
The bottom line in a generalized way is a person must have an interest in the subject manner and even better a growing interest (like Watson Fulks wrote) - without that you become ignorant and un-caring - "Don't know - Don't case" and that is OK for many subjects and issues.
Besides - Like Ringo Starr sang "You gotta pay your dues, if you want play the blues, and know IT DON'T COME EASY"
I barely made it out of high school, and did about 2.75 / 4.00 in college algebra and calculus in a 2 year program. I've always wanted to learn more calculus, and after about 40 years, I finally had time to pick up a book. I've been working through Anton Calculus and finding I'm actually pretty damned good at it.
The PROBLEM IS THERE IS NOT ENOUGH TIME IN COLLEGE TO ACTUALLY DO THE WORK !!!!
I just completed part one of Matrix sheet 30 questions in 5 hours I feel very good doing it ❤😊
Thanks Math Sorcerer. You videos are helping me.
I just hope now that I'll build speed in solving questions 😅
Awesome!
@@TheMathSorcerer I saw Your Video And You Said That You made silly mistakes and you solve the matrix chapter till 2 am.
At that time it was 6:30 PM I decided to also do matrix till 2am but completed all at 12AM 😁
I thought I was only struggling from these problems. But watching your videos help he realise that everyone goes through these problems who try. I'm able to solve one question in 6-10 mins I have to reduce the speed to 1-3 mins. Can you suggest me what should I do?
Definitely a good point that your morning mind is your best mind. If you have some mentally demanding task that you care about, do it then.
For me, it's a combination. I'd say there seems to be some real talent there, that gives me strong hints (that are usually but not always correct) about how something will work out, how much work it will take, or what is a likely way to tackle a problem (it's kind of a high-level view of the landscape), but then often (and especially always if there was no such hunch) it'll take quite a bit of work to actually get there. Another important factor is that math is interesting to me - I'd say that makes a big difference.
However, I *am* a programmer. (Also some talent there, and a lot of interest, and some sweat.) (And Interest in the other STEM fields, but you can only do so much - well, *I* can, no idea about you.)
Really, from my perspective, the interest is the most important bit. It's what keeps you motivated when struggling with something.
Sometimes I think it is how well the teacher does in laying the foundations of math... I couldn't get TRIG or CALCULUS until someone explained to me about THE UNIT CIRCLE...After that It gave me a better understanding about relationships..
Great insight!
I just passed the GED math Perrin on 12-10-24 I like math but I struggle to understand watching your videos helped me to love it. Thank you ☺️
I absolutely agree! I thought I sucked at math but I need to do advanced mathematics to calc 3 and I was super nervous especially once I hit cal 1, but I found after going through algebra and precalc a system that works for me. I got a B+ on calculus 1 and I was a low C kind of math student in high school. I’m 36 and started back to college when I was 33 for context, so you can teach old dogs new tricks. Haha
Isn't this the truth of everything? As Jack Sheldon, the great jazz trumpeter and vocalist was asked: "Why do you still practice?" His career spanned 60 years.
He said: "I'm just trying to get good."
Hello, TMS. I love your videos. I've bought every single course (literally all 18 of them - are you making more??) I love them so much.
For context: i graduated highschool. going to be getting military enlistment in a month or so because i want the GI bill. going to be attending community college in a few years.
is it possible i can attend community college and transfer to princeton or some higher end school? what would be required of me? would i have to join MAO or math clubs? would you be able to give advice to absolutely strengthen as a pure math ba major AS MUCH AS COMPREHENSIBLY possible to get in? if not princeton then harvard's community college - and would THAT strengthen chances of getting into princeton let's say? if i essentially "hopped" from one school to another or is that a red flag? i see it as university's adaptation of LoL's rank system tbh lmao. or will this look bad? same as the "pick your easy professor" strats.
suppose i join MAO. would you have any tips generally and personally for becoming as competent in math as can be? you mentioned you weren't a competition type of folk, i wanted to beg of you any advice if you believed it was a good idea. or should i even bother self with activities i don't care about? i concern not over societies, clubs, etc but they seem like a REQUIREMENT almost (we both know how power creep and skill creep in games - especially in LoL work. same thing with applicant pools and population's educations - what i'm competing against means i NEED to be doing every single thing possible in order to be even remotely worthy. what math organizations societies etc OTHER THAN the MAO would you suggest i join? what were the traits of the most successful students at your school clubs - when you were in school AND teaching - AND also, most successful not even limiting to MAO, but of your own personal students you personally teach.
if you check back i texted you on udemy roughly 2.5 years ago as i had infatuation with math which began grade 11 and grade 12. fast forward, a ton of life unfortunates got in the way. i ended up doing for further context EXTREEEMELY poorly in sr year. like we're talking in quarter 2 i got a 0.9 gpa. not an 8 - that was a "zero". i LOVED math but other stuff wrecked me. i fell pretty low and very hard. but as of past day or so im getting back up and taking on the college algebra series - and doin the rest of your courses IN ORDER. what is the eta time im going to be getting completion of your courses? 12 months 8 hours a day you would say? if VERY dedicated as #1 hobby and i drop gaming etc? im 100% dedicated. believe me. i will do anything at any costs - cutting the fat (trading gaming hobbying for math hobbying) is just the start of infinite sacrifices.
i sent you at the time an email i recall, but you never replied. i'm aware the overload and themes discussed may've discouraged you. my mistake was burdening you with the unsolvabilities and unfortunacies life brings, both of which out of your locus of control. now i'm better. now i'm smarter. now i beg your attention back to me, my situation, and your wisdom. i ask of your - ANY - advice to my situation.
TLDR: applying to colleges, upgrading colleges, course completion.
P.S:
1 also, where'd your forum site go?
2 also, can you please make more courses? i'd REALLY love to see a "generalized" course - where you go over your tips such as this ruclips.net/video/lrcIdmITMG8/видео.html and other various gems.
3 also, can you cover long division? i need for the ASVAB and you're the best teacher lol i ask YOU because i know you have very fascinating methods at doing things --- factoring - synthetic division - memorization - fraction adding - problem solving prowess.
4 what is the "track" or branches of courses i should take? i WILL take EVERY SINGLE COURSE of your's - so what courses should one start with? obviously not calculus 3 first lol... what is the path i should take? if possible, please tell !
5 Are you still working on your precalc course?
I went to high school with someone who went to community college and transferred to Yale. She was really smart, an “A” student in high school and assume the same in college.
I know someone who was very smart and a disciplined student who was a top student in high school (I can’t vouch all A’s, but would be surprised if not.) She went to community college and transferred to Yale.
RUclips automatically deleted my comment and is not placing your account name at the top, so tried again.
You definitely need some aptitude to be really good at maths even at a high school level. But aptitude is usually associated with interest in the subject, because the student finds what he is doing naturally rewarding rather than frustrating. As a result, people with innate aptitude are naturally motivated to do the work. So the real question is how to make it interesting for the others, so that they are motivated to do the work even without the natural aptitude. Fortunately there are tools these days - like GeoGebra - which can turn the roots of a parametric polynomial into an engaging animation and make it clear what the equation is really doing, to take a simple example.
I did maths and theoretical physics at university in the early Eighties and don't really remember too much about them. But I now find myself about to start tutoring high school students in maths. It's fascinating to me to discover these modern visualisation and symbolic calculation tools and think about how I could use them to get unmotivated students more engaged with the subject.
Keep the pencil moving. I tell my students on a fairly regular basis. The first rule of math: make a picture. The second rule of math: make a picture. If you can visualize the problem, you understand the problem. If you are not given a picture, make one. If you are given a picture, add to it. Annotate it. The doodles help sometimes.
(My third rule of math is correlation does not imply causation)
When you buy a math book always get one with lots of problems at the end of each chapter. And answers. Schaum Outline series worked best for me. I remember Murray R. Spiegel fondly. Laplace Transforms and Fourier Analysis.
The biggest practical lie is this ... seeing a beautiful calculation, derivation, or proof. And thinking the author did it on this one clean page. In actuality, many pieces of paper, eraser marks, sweat, tears, etc finally comes together. Only then, a clean sheet of paper comes out with the work on it...and it was done without effort and hard work and as if you knew it all along. For example, it took Bernoulli more than 3 pages in an engineering book to come up with his equation for fluids.
Thanks for your inspiration.
I think the main point is DON’T GIVE UP! Have faith in yourself. Sure, not everyone is going to win the Fields medal, but you can still get great results by practicing.
The problem with maths is that it requires you to MEMORIZE a ton of tools in order to be of any use.
Success = Talent * Effort^Focus + Random Events.
Effort and Focus are in our control.
I'm an engineer by education but have worked many different jobs not related to my education for the past decade. Trying to get back to math and trust me it's not been easy. The proofs and mathematical calculations that I could basically do in my sleep are no longer instinctive or even easy anymore. So yeah, those who think being able to do math is pretty much just an innate skill, should just take that opinion and throw it in the garbage bin.
I'd just like to add that your videos, motivating your viewers to pick up math again, have been a real inspiration for me as well. I'm starting with Trigo and some basic algebra and I hope to eventually get back to my level of proficiency from my college days.
I'm naturally good at math because I've got a high spacial intelligence. I can easily visualize the numbers in my head and do calculations. When I was in high school I only took Algebra 1. After I high school, I went to college and had to take a math class above Algebra 2 so I could transfer to the University of California Santa Barbara. I skipped over Algebra 2 to save myself from having to go to college another semester. I took a statistics class that had a prerequisite of Algebra 2 and passed it. It was a big hurdle for me and I did have to study every day for hours because it was hard, I didn't have the Algebra 2 prerequisite, and it was fast paced because I took it during summer school.
Part of me always gets enraged whenever the topic of "talent" is brought up. Any discussion about "talent" or "giftedness" not only detracts from the amount of work required for people to excel in these subjects, but it is also highly discouraging to people who do not feel as if they are "NaTuRaLlY gIfTeD" (whatever the hell that means)-that people who do not possess certain "gifts" are genetically incapable of becoming experts in certain fields-that people who are not "talented" are unable to become the best of the best in a certain field. Also, the conflation of "talent" and "intelligence" makes it appear as if intelligence is some fixed quantity when it clearly is not! We should stop venerating talent and instead venerate hard work!
It is in people's genetic makeup that they have a greater propensity to be better at certain areas. Stop being enraged by this fact.
Talent exists but it's only a propensity for capabilities. Computer hardware limits how fast a benchmark can run but improved computer software using a superior algorithm can indeed run faster. Humans are no different from computing machinery in this respect.
Everyone can usually do better, stronger, and faster with practice but everyone's limit differs, based upon their particular constitution.
Practice doesn't make perfect but it can absolutely get one much closer.
Yeah, the words talent and genius were invented by lasybones😅
9:00 you have to be gifted to become one of the top 250 in the world. But if thats not what you aim to reach, as long as you do not have serious problems, you can learn math at the level u want to
I've been constructing a family Library for the last 8 years its full of subjects from Music, to Law, religion, and Maths and Physics; I'm currently enjoying Music, have a rough idea for my library and am content with its overall shape, I have 6 months learning guitar and I already know that it's not going to last forever eventually I will be content with my overall skills at that moment I know I will want to try my hand at Maths; I'm 28 years old if I play guitar for 10 years I know I will be 38, I'll travel for 2 years, at 40 I'm going to sit down and revisit Euclid and probably start with Set theory and discrete mathematics before I start algebra 1 and 2. My question is am I stupid to consider a math journey at 40? Is 40 too old to be a beginner?
A "B" in Physics is pretty excellent; take it from an Old Physics Major.
those who seems to be naturally gifted in math are those who enjoy working on puzzles and figuring out how to solve them. They see the value of solving the problem that's why they are persistent until they arrive at satisfiable answer. They eventually become adept in mathematical thinking as more and more problems they solve.
Maths is a language that describes things.
the more you use that language the more fluent you are.
if you want to be good, practice, practice, practice.
In high-school i wasn't good enough for maths,,but i was doing physics at the time though i found that am doing good in physics than mathematics and its not too good for me and I was judge negatively...but later when I joined college ,,I am an engineering student and am good again for college maths than before in high-school and I don't know what is going on
Math sorcerer, I'm from México and i speak spanish, actually "madrugar" means waking up early, so what you do about doing math early in the morning is like "madrugar"
Al que madruga Dios lo ayuda, i think thats true.
I wanna learn algebra what should I start with
Wishful thinking you can get good at math without talent, like music or language. Talent in math, language and music are correlated. If you dont have talent you have to memorize a lot to compensate the lack of talent.
Sir could you please tell me a math keyboard app from which I can write math symbols like 3^2n on youtube thumbnail?
I think you have also go for your own interest so you stay motivated.
Yeah, and everyone can be a Mozart if they work hard enough. I can run like Jesse Owens if I just put in the effort. Look at me I can be centerfield. Sure if you have enough math aptitude you can be mediocre but you will never be Rembrandt, and that's okay. I will agree with him that doggedness with enough aptitude is overlooked.
well, i understand paradoxes and infitnitiy naturally from birth while nobody else seems to understand these things
but it's true that i was able to explain what i was expecting this video to be about, real lies that are taught in schools, to some people
so it does not have to be present from birth
A great observation for sure.
Bunch of words meant to, what? Convince people there's no such thing as natural ability for math? Ok, make that argument for the millionth time, I mean it's been made before, and millions of times before, but that won't stop some kids in math class from almost instantaneously grasping something that other kids need to work for weeks on.
how do you get better at topology
We can always count on your candor character, math sourcerer
"Al que madruga Dios lo ayuda."
translates to:
"To that who wakes up at dawn, God will help."
It's in the same line as the Early Bird and such ideas.
Math's biggest lie is telling us the circle constant is pi instead of tau.
In the world there are three type of people... Those who know how to count, and those who can't 😅
A bit off-topic, but, why did I think that the word "lie" means the biggest theme of "Lie algebra" before watching the video???
I don't what to do i have a lot of free time but i can't bring my self to study math what is wrong with me
Maybe just start with something simple and maybe just do 1 or 2 problems a day and soon you will do more and more and get onto more advanced and fun topics
Natural talent sets the ceiling. I could live 100 consecutive lifetimes and never match up to Terrance Tao. I can become decent at math in my lifetime.
Even those two, clearly gifted, young girls who put forward those trigonometry based proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem, admit that it wasn't close to easy for them.
Nice
I came here to troll, but you are totally right, people think I'm great at math, and I kind of am, but damn I have worked my whole to get good, and I'm still working at it. I was so bad at math and I hated it. Now I love math, and I tell people they should do more math.
Dominion (2018)
The gratest matematicians worked the hardest to sharpen there brains and thoughts, for example Einstein worked even years on some problems just understand and solve them, and he did never give up, meanwhile we do. Maybe we have to try harder.
Of course Math is hard! It’s not intuitive, anymore (the frontier-Mathematics isn’t; basic Maths is, for anyone with sufficient common sense: 2+2 can’t be less than 2, for instance). It’s not playing around with circles, anymore.
All math is approximation.. The answer is determination. I found the fundamental truth!
Its how many classes your taking. I'd watch the stock market until I was sick. This one guy was taking nine classes at once, maybe your super healthy like this guy was. But most of the time I just sat in the cafteria and worked on assignments. I'd get all mad and go ask why the problem was wrong. Draw up a superheterodyne satellite, oh that's why they glow. But one day, these physics kids all thought it would be cool to cheat. The oddest thing was I'd make oddball mistakes. Like in Calculus II, I really didn't know any better until I took it twice, but in physics I'd just mess up alot. This amplified when I went from JC to UC. Always for children, pizza shapes cafteria, climb a hill everywhere you go. The teacher would talk to maybe 15 students at the most, just dullard bewilderment everywhere. I'd dream I was late for face painting psychology for a month, "where is your Debrah classic for show and tell?" But in combinations I learned something from them, out of brutality of nothing learned. Its how many zeros you can store in a combination is how much information you can store in a combination. Thus the eigenvalue, jacobean, and free space, exists because you can define a set space regardless of a sets size. Which all their classes refute, its just a wrapper. Well money wasted I figure.
It started off with the proof that things are inherently 3D, so I knew linear algebra was a scam, how do you put 899 blocks in 1201 blocks, this is a shambego, but now, behold, stuff is only 3D. So I started by asking how many combinations store two zero's? Its easy, seven sets store a chiral radix. You can store a padded radix, but this just gravitational, it has no need to curl or interact. Just each number 1-7 goes in a abc place. So for much larger numbers; 64-4096-16777216, you have infinite zeros storage in (a-(b-(-c(-d)))))= e. So, there's a billion little graduate ideas in there, but first you'd be stuck in closure ville.