3 ms·

> hardest misconception to overcome This seems like an exaggeration.

• zaroth 7y ago
  More accurately, it’s a colloquialism.
  • ncmncm 7y ago
    The number of people who fail to overcome it is close to the number of people who never get a grasp of what mathematics is about. Ask them. It comes up all the time.
    • jacobolus 7y ago
      Yes, but your inference that having a concept of multiplication as repeated addition leads people to “not grasp mathematics” is backwards. I have seen little evidence that people who become interested in mathematics have an unusually difficult time “overcoming” this viewpoint.
      • ncmncm 7y ago
        Their difficulty letting go of repeated addition leads them to consider mathematics opaque, and they lose interest.