4 ms·
Oh--just that I couldn't understand the first chapter in Stepanov fully on first reading, so I need to read it again (and again, and again). The Feynman refere
by turtleyacht 4y ago
Oh--just that I couldn't understand the first chapter in Stepanov fully on first reading, so I need to read it again (and again, and again).
The Feynman reference is
Well, I asked him, “How can I read it?
It’s so hard.” He said, “You start at the
beginning and you read as far as you can
get, until you are lost. Then you start at
the beginning again, and you keep working
through until you can understand the whole
book.”
—Joan Feynman, Richard Feynman’s sister,
recalling a discussion with her brother
From https://rs.io/feynman-reading-difficult-things/ https://rs.io/feynman-reading-difficult-things/
- layer8 4y agoThat takes quadratic time though, assuming one “gets lost” with roughly constant likelihood throughout new text. I’m sure there must be a better way.
- turtleyacht 4y agoIt would indeed take forever, even assuming we are not only reading, but writing notes too. The only way through is to make it computable: writing programs and making it concrete. Another is to obsess over it externally: taping index cards up on the walls, ruminating on it in the bath, and transferring that to software. There's just too much to learn now. My bet is on first principles from cheap books, but the world keeps turning. What has worked for you?