Someone very sweet, a total stranger, wrote:
"I wanted to send you a short thank you. Early in my college career, I found your article on how to learn math and physics. As a child I experienced educational neglect and knew very little about math or science, or even how to study it! I was lost before I even started."
"I have lived by your quote, 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝗯𝗶𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘁 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗴𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴, but couldn't remember where I had read it! I recently found it in my journal from my 1st week of college! Most amazingly, this approach works for every single subject!"
It's interesting to see someone who firmly latched onto that principle and profited from it. I know a bunch of math grad students who are really good in other ways but still don't impose that discipline. They trip up all the time. It's great to have intuitions that go beyond what you can prove, but it's bad to mistake those for certainty.
My article on how to learn math and physics is here:
https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/books.htmlI should update it. For example, my advice on courses still seems good, but there are a lot more online courses now.
