(March 8, 2018 at 4:00 am)robvalue Wrote: It would appear to the casual onlooker to be the darkest form of magic
Great, I hope you enjoy your further studies!
I was obsessed with maths. At "A level" (age 16-18) I did maths, further maths, physics and chemistry. I chose the last two because they were the closest to further further and further further further maths. I found physics the hardest out of all of them, as I found mechanics to be the hardest maths unit; not because of the maths involved, but the translation of real world problems using physical rules. Then of course, I did maths at university. And then became a maths teacher...
I wonder if I'd be better at it now. Maybe my young brain was too completely abstract. I did spend most of my time in pretend worlds. Then again, I still do. I think I would be better now, I feel I'm more well rounded.
At my age (35), and especially since I didn't have the chance to get into maths seriously when I was younger, I know I would most likely never be able to come up with innovative proofs on my own that others have yet to come up with, as my fluid intelligence should have already started its decline. But it doesn't mean one still can't improve their knowledge on a subject regardless of age, as there's also crystallized intelligence which should continue to increase until perhaps far later on in life.
Yeah, physics does put me off a little bit with the whole translation to the real world thing where things are no longer as precise as they are in the mathematical world, and a lot of assumptions then have to be made (which really bugs me personally). But that's the real world for you.
