4 ms·
I read a Murakami novel in high school, 1Q84. The protagonist is a math teacher who talked about math in a way that I had never seen before. I'd been told I was
by RoddaWallPro 5y ago
I read a Murakami novel in high school, 1Q84. The protagonist is a math teacher who talked about math in a way that I had never seen before. I'd been told I was "good at math" beforehand(for whatever that means, I'm not a fields medalist or anything), but for ~6 months after reading that book, I was _really good_. Like, suddenly I did not have to do any homework in my sr. year calculus class. I loved sitting in class and watching my teacher work through problems, and it seemingly imprinted directly into my brain, because while doing no homework I could still ace the exams while writing with a pen (no erasing and re-do'ing with a pencil). All because of the way this fictional teacher from 1Q84 talked about math.
Has anyone else had an experience like that? (With math or other things?)
- jackthetab 5y agoC'mon! With a build-up like that and you don't mention the name of the book?! Don't leave us hanging, dude!
- strikelaserclaw 5y agoits literally called 1Q84
- jackthetab 5y agoOh! I thought that was when he read it, the first quarter of 1984. Off to buy another book...
- openfuture 5y agoI'm doing a MSc in mathematics. I tried to read that book once and I thought it was terrible. One of the few books I dropped before finishing it and also the reason why I have been reluctant to pick up other Murakami books. With respect to your phenomena of leveling up your mathematical maturity without doing mathematics, that has happened to me a few times and I would say yoga and psychadelics are the primary source of inspiration. Of course you need to do a lot of reading and studying (or if you have courses then you can sit back and have them feed it to you). One thing is making the information known and the other is to understand it, this is where the things that can spark random enlightenments come in.
- barbs 5y agoI haven't read the book, so I'm curious to know what it was about the way they described maths that helped you so much?