"There is no Royal Road to Geometry." -- Euclid I've spent time studying number theory (Ph.D. Berkeley, wrote 30+ papers and 3 books), and it really is very de

"There is no Royal Road to Geometry." -- Euclid I've spent time studying number theory (Ph.D. Berkeley, wrote 30+ papers and 3 books), and it really is very deep. If understanding some notation or mathematics doesn't come easily to you, that's normal. It often takes Ph.D. students years of fulltime study just to understand a single research paper. This is because mathematics is a very deep subject, certainly much deeper than everything else I've encountered in academia. The good part is that pretty much all mathematics does make sense, and can be truly 100% understood if you're willing to invest enough time, unlike the case with many other things in life! An added bonus is that much of mathematics is also incredibly beautiful, when you understand it. Listening to lectures by excellent speakers (many are on youtube now) helps a lot.