> > The way to really understand the idea is to re-create what the author left out. > If reading mathematics requires re-creating what the author left out, why

> > The way to really understand the idea is to re-create what the author left out. > If reading mathematics requires re-creating what the author left out, why not leave it in? To really get some feeling for the content of the text, it seems to be really essential that the reader explores the content a bit herself. This is illustrated quite well in Don Knuth's "Surreal Numbers". Knowing this is probably the key to learning to read mathematics. One can try to write all this out, but that will make the text harder to read for the mathematician, who now has to find the important bits of the text (think of the various 1000 page Visual Basic books). Also, it takes a lot more effort to write down all these "trivialities". Perhaps the problem here is really with the school system. We study "maths" for many years in school, without ever learning how to read it.