> a clever game for insiders to play, but basically the opposite of good practice from a readability perspective. This is truly, deeply the wrong lesson to tak

> a clever game for insiders to play, but basically the opposite of good practice from a readability perspective. This is truly, deeply the wrong lesson to take away. I'd say that, in a spirit similar to the Feynman technique, you don't really understand proofs whose central idea you can't explain simply -- and a wordless proof is good evidence that you have in fact grasped the proof's essence. Of course, this doesn't mean you can do away with formal rigor. Mathematics needs that too. But I'd argue that is "the clever game for insiders to play" (albeit an important game), while intuitive understanding is what you should really be after, and is what generates new ideas and new proofs. More beautiful proofs without words: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/733754/visually-stunning-math-concepts-which-are-easy-to-explain#734790 https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/733754/visually-stu... https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1337750/easy-math-proofs-or-visual-examples-to-make-high-school-students-enthusiastic-ab?noredirect=1&lq=1 https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1337750/easy-math-p... https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=proofs+without+words https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3...