Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Math is hard

After years thinking basic math (let's say, the first half of the college subjects) is easy, I changed my mind. Now I think any math can be considered hard. Not that learning is an unattainable objective - surely it isn't. To get the knowledge and understand the subjects of math (and small parts of it, like, let's say, Jordan canonical form) one has to really learn and think; one has to have a breakthrough. It's not trivial; it requires effort. One has to really change to be able to understand a new concept (which in mathematics, it's normally an abstract idea) and find space for the new model in the mind. This holds for advanced (like homological algebra) and for basic topics (thinking on calculus). Personally, I think this approach could offer me better conditions to understand what is going wrong when someone doesn't get ideas that become simple for me (after a lot of time) and try to overcome some learning barriers.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Short presentation

I just created this blog to be the English dual of the blog O Vetor Normal I kept for a long time (without almost without atualizations - shame on me).
Soon I'll write my first exclusive text for this blog. If my willpower is strong enough, I'll translate the old posts (from the blog in Portuguese) to here.