3 ms·

There is no absolute here. While I agree that a great degree of understanding is desirable, lots of concepts and techniques don’t sink in until hours, days or e

by dzolob 6y ago

There is no absolute here. While I agree that a great degree of understanding is desirable, lots of concepts and techniques don’t sink in until hours, days or even years after being presented. I still remember powering through lots problems without much clarity and achieving the right answer. Every attempt, failed or successful, got me closer to really understand what I was doing. It’s ok not to understand a topic the first or nth-time time you come across it. If you follow through, something will stick, and sooner than later you’ll get a good enough picture. They are like seeds, you know.

lmilcin 6y ago
I guess what you mean by "sink in" is a form of deeper more intuitive knowledge. Like when you suddenly figure out how everything is connected. If that's what you mean, then yes -- this is something that is going to happen over time. What I mean is that your teacher will want you to understand some concepts and learn some skills before you move to next topic. Very deep understanding is probably not on the list and it is expected to only form over time. But there are topics that are explicitly expected and you have to understand because otherwise what is going to be on the board the next day is not going to make whole lot of sense.
- dzolob 6y ago
  Yes and no. What I meant was more like, you don’t need to fully understand rigid body mechanics to build a table, but if you build enough tables, you might win some knowledge on rigid body mechanics that you may have missed in class. Of course, this is not always true, but a concrete example that comes to mind is integration. It’s very hard conceptually, but not so in technique. If you learn how to do it, for the most part you can skip the concept (to some degree, obviously). I didn’t understood Riemann integral until I learned Lebesque.

by dzolob 6y ago

lmilcin 6y ago

I guess what you mean by "sink in" is a form of deeper more intuitive knowledge. Like when you suddenly figure out how everything is connected. If that's what you mean, then yes -- this is something that is going to happen over time. What I mean is that your teacher will want you to understand some concepts and learn some skills before you move to next topic. Very deep understanding is probably not on the list and it is expected to only form over time. But there are topics that are explicitly expected and you have to understand because otherwise what is going to be on the board the next day is not going to make whole lot of sense.

dzolob 6y ago
Yes and no. What I meant was more like, you don’t need to fully understand rigid body mechanics to build a table, but if you build enough tables, you might win some knowledge on rigid body mechanics that you may have missed in class. Of course, this is not always true, but a concrete example that comes to mind is integration. It’s very hard conceptually, but not so in technique. If you learn how to do it, for the most part you can skip the concept (to some degree, obviously). I didn’t understood Riemann integral until I learned Lebesque.