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Perhaps it's not the only way, but it's a way that people outside of "academic mathematics" usually aren't even aware of (from my experience explaining it). Th
by romwell 8y ago
Perhaps it's not the only way, but it's a way that people outside of "academic mathematics" usually aren't even aware of (from my experience explaining it).
The way most people know math is the way it is presented in the article: "Math is pain. Studying math is masochistic." (literal quote).
There are many ways to appreciate math, but perhaps the ones described as "masochistic" aren't the ways we should actively spread, in my opinion. And yet, we do.
- rocqua 8y agoThe pain in math comes from trying to solve problems you know are solvable. Either doing exercises, or deriving a result some article called trivial. Compare this to doing original work. Here, when you get stuck it is frustrating because you want progress, but there is no reason to presume that what you are doing is feasible. Therefore, it is not painful that you make no progress, for it is not expected of you to be able to progress. This is of course a big difference between undergraduate mathematics and doing mathematics research.