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Ask HN: What is the hardest project or scenario you've ever faced?
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- meltyness 4y agoTrying to learn to solve partial differential equations. These relate rates of functions of multiple variables and are used for describing the dynamics of a system, and their solutions make predictions about how the system evolves. - by hand - without any experience writing meaningfully heterogenous proofs - without being able to construct any relevant equations from models - without a good understanding of the origin of Bessel or Airy series - without having lists of criteria committed or understanding of when series solutions are called for - without understanding solving systems of differential equations - without any significant motivating application to strive towards at the time - without considerable practice teaching myself things, since the lectures felt like a kitchen knife piano ballet https://youtu.be/x93DsA7UHhs https://youtu.be/x93DsA7UHhs I eventually broke down and sat in the library for hours at a time making a handwritten copy of the exposition of the textbook, hoping something would stick. I was passed.
- metadat 4y agoWow, that is a dramatic comparison with the kitchen knife ballet! "I was passed" - as in good, you passed the course? Or the instructor gave you a pass?
- meltyness 4y agoI don't feel like I deserved a passing grade for the amount of knowledge I walked away from the course with, but I didn't question it. As I've matured intellectually, I realize that not every course is a neat parlor trick you can regurgitate on a whiteboard 5 years after the fact having only attended the lectures, at least I don't have that gift. I guess it is just that I couldn't find myself bewildered by any of the content, so as to want to encode it, a "great, something else to look up" mindset.
- tomcam 4y agoGetting out of an alcoholic/neglectful/abusive/suicidal childhood home without complete self-destruction. Worked, still haunted