DO YOU KNOW WHAT I JUST REALIZED

*through tears* I don’t ever want to let my fear of failure trump the wonder of mathematics, I don’t ever want to be so scared of it that I forget to treasure it, I don’t ever want to let my feelings of being small deter me from even trying to dig deeper, I don’t ever want to turn my eyes away from the beauty, even though it is blinding. Never, never, never. 

omg that sounds so cool

one of my friends found radiooooo which is a site that streams music from any country from any decade (well, most countries/decade combos work) and we’ve been digging going on a quest to find what is rad

so far the following is good

50s/60s/70s/80s russia

70s cambodia

20s japan

80s ethiopia

80s india

good point! I should add to my list the golden rule of asking yourself "does this thing that I'm currently trying actually work for me". in the meantine I had a conversation with a friend who said that for her not caring about the aesthetics of notes decreases the effectiveness of studying, my perspective definitely isn't The Only Correct One

the best method is the one that works. it's perfectly okay to benefit from notes, from making them pretty, it's also perfectly okay to limit the notes. it was a surprising discovery for me that taking notes doesn't help with my learning, because my whole life I've been told to always take notes. but of course this isn't going to work for everyone, thank you for pointing this out

tips for studying math

I thought I could share what I learned about studying math so far. it will be very subjective with no scientific sources, pure personal experience, hence one shouldn't expect all of this to work, I merely hope to give some ideas

1. note taking

some time ago I stopped caring about making my notes pretty and it was a great decision – they are supposed to be useful. moreover, I try to write as little as possible. this way my notes contain only crucial information and I might actually use them later because finding things becomes much easier. there is no point in writing down everything, a lot of the time it suffices to know where to find things in the textbook later. also, I noticed that taking notes doesn't actually help me remember, I use it to process information that I'm reading, and if I write down too many details it becomes very chaotic. when I'm trying to process as much as possible in the spot while reading I'm better at structuring the information. so my suggestion would be to stop caring about the aesthetics and try to write down only what is the most important (such as definitions, statements of theorems, useful facts)

2. active learning

do not write down the proof as is, instead write down general steps and then try to fill in the details. it would be perfect to prove everything from scratch, but that's rarely realistic, especially when the exam is in a few days. breaking the proof down into steps and describing the general idea of each step naturally raises questions such as "why is this part important, what is the goal of this calculation, how to describe this reasoning in one sentence, what are we actually doing here". sometimes it's possible to give the proof purely in words, that's also a good idea. it's also much more engaging and creative than passively writing things down. another thing that makes learning more active is trying to come up with examples for the definitions

3. exercises

many textbooks give exercises between definitions and theorem, doing them right away is generally a good idea, that's another way to make studying more active. I also like to take a look at the exercises at the end of the chapter (if that's the case) once in a while to see which ones I could do with what I already learned and try to do them. sometimes it's really hard to solve problems freshly after studying the theory and that's what worked out examples are for, it helps. mamy textbooks offer solutions of exercises, I like to compare the "official" ones with mine. it's obviously better than reading the solution before solving the problem on my own, but when I'm stuck for a long time I check if my idea for the solution at least makes sense. if it's similar to the solution from the book then I know I should just keep going

4. textbooks and other sources

finding the right book is so important. I don't even want to think about all the time I wasted trying to work with a book that just wasn't it. when I need a textbook for something I google "best textbooks for [topic]" and usually there is already a discussion on MSE where people recommend sources and explain why they think that source is a good one, which also gives the idea of how it's written and what to expect. a lot of professors share their lecture/class notes online, which contain user-friendly explenations, examples, exercises chosen by experienced teachers to do in their class, sometimes you can even find exercises with solutions. using the internet is such an important skill

5. studying for exams

do not study the material in a linear order, instead do it by layers. skim everything to get the general idea of which topics need the most work, which can be skipped, then study by priority. other than that it's usually better to know the sketch of every proof than to know a half of them in great detail and the rest not at all. it's similar when it comes to practice problems, do not spend half of your time on easy stuff that could easily be skipped, it's better to practice a bit of everything than to be an expert in half of the topics and unable to solve easy problems from the rest. if the past papers are available they can be a good tool to take a "mock exam" after studying for some time, it gives an opoortunity to see, again, which topics need the most work

6. examples and counterexamples

there are those theorems with statements that take up half of the page because there are just so many assumptions. finding counterexamples for each assumption usually helps with that. when I have a lot of definitions to learn, thinking of examples for them makes everything more specific therefore easier to remember

7. motivation

and by that I mean motivation of concepts. learning something new is much easier if it's motivated with an interesting example, a question, or application. it's easier to learn something when I know that it will be useful later, it's worth it to try to make things more interesting

8. studying for exams vs studying longterm

oftentimes it is the case that the exam itself requires learning some specific types of problems, which do not really matter in the long run. of course, preparing for exams is important, but keep in mind that what really matters is learning things that will be useful in the future especially when they are relevant to the field of choice. just because "this will not be on the test" doesn't always mean it can be skipped

ok I think that's all I have for now. I hope someone will find these helpful and feel free to share yours

rb this with ur opinion on this shade of pink:

Thank you, /r/ProgrammerHumor, I love you endlessly.

Redditors competing to make the worst volume sliders possible...

Theory Time

The reason endermen don’t like it when you look at them is because they communicate telepathically with one another by locking eyes! Humans are absolutely not designed to do this so when we look at them we are accidentally projecting all of our thoughts into them at the same time and it hurts :(

5x5 Diamond rule, iterates 1-32

Iterates 40, 48, 56

Iterate 64

Iterate 128

This is a 2D cellular automaton generating a 3D fractal layer by layer. I coded it in Microsoft Excel - each pixel is 1 cell.

See more MSExcel fractals

i gotta say i don't buy all them planning strategies and tips that require more effort than just sitting and doing the work

i mean that might help some people but i find that when i am doing something important to me i need no plans nor do i need motivation, i also don't procrastinate, everything falls into its right place

and if achieving something takes so much effort in preparation, is this even supposed to be a thing? idk, maybe that's the reason why i have no external proof of my work lol

Quatrefoil Knot

did i tell u guys i got into an argument on twitter bc i said foxes are dogs and someone tried to bring up their actual fuckin. classification or whatever and i just said “foxes are dogs cause they are fluffye” and they kept arguing with me. the entire time i was like “you will not survive the immigration to tumblr you are lucky we are not there right now”