I still remember the realization in college at Flinders University in Australia that mathematics was not just an abstract game of symbols but could be used as a tool to analyze and understand the modern world.
Terence TaoRead
When you're concentrating hard, hours can fly by, and it's just you and a math problem.
Interpretation
Focus can make time feel fleeting while engaging with challenging tasks.
This quote highlights the unique experience of deep concentration, especially in the context of solving complex problems. It suggests that when one is fully immersed in an intellectually demanding activity, such as mathematics, the passage of time becomes irrelevant, replaced by a sense of connection between the individual and the challenge at hand.
In practice
During a seminar on the importance of focus in problem-solving.
I still remember the realization in college at Flinders University in Australia that mathematics was not just an abstract game of symbols but could be used as a tool to analyze and understand the modern world.
Most students who take math classes aren't going to be mathematicians. They're going to be engineers, statisticians - in many ways, that's the more important mission of math education.
For me, I guess the main motivation is the satisfaction of finally understanding some tricky mathematical concept or phenomenon and then explaining it to others.
One can think of any given axiom system as being like a computer with a certain limited amount of memory or processing power. One could switch to a computer with even more storage, but no matter how large an amount of storage space the computer has, there will still exist some tasks that are beyond its ability.
I recall being fascinated by numbers even at age three and viewed their manipulation as a kind of game.
Talent is important, but how one develops and nurtures it is even more so.
Think of what's stored in an 80- or a 90-year-old mind. Just marvel at it. You've got to get out this information, this knowledge, because you've got something to pass on. There'll be nobody like you ever again. Make the most of every molecule you've got as long as you've got a second to go.
But their intervention makes our acts to serve ever less merely the immediate claims of our instincts.
You need to understand things in order to invent beyond them.
Memory is the treasure house of the mind wherein the monuments thereof are kept and preserved.
What I am is good enough if I would only be it openly.
The gospel of Jesus Christ prescribes the wisest rules for just conduct in every situation in life. Happy they who are enabled to obey them in all situations!
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