A friend lent me this exact book recently, and while I followed the first chapter, I quickly gave up upon encountering the exercises, because I could not even do the first one. At all.
I don’t think I am stupid, so I hope you’re just underestimating the required mathematical thinking experience (if not actual background knowledge, none of which is assumed) required to get through this book. Mathematicians do so as a rule.
This is quite likely, especially for the beginning (which is mostly on computation, my area of expertise). That said, I’d guess that your difficulties stemmed from not knowing a good way to approach the problems, and being intimidated by terminology. I bet that if you work your way through a few of them with a friend, and get a feel for how these types of question are tackled, then the other exercises will seem much easier in short order.
I’m also more than happy to go over the early exercises in the book with you, if you want some assistance. PM me if you’re interested.
A friend lent me this exact book recently, and while I followed the first chapter, I quickly gave up upon encountering the exercises, because I could not even do the first one. At all.
I don’t think I am stupid, so I hope you’re just underestimating the required mathematical thinking experience (if not actual background knowledge, none of which is assumed) required to get through this book. Mathematicians do so as a rule.
So that I can better update on this information, can you tell me what the first exercise is?
This is quite likely, especially for the beginning (which is mostly on computation, my area of expertise). That said, I’d guess that your difficulties stemmed from not knowing a good way to approach the problems, and being intimidated by terminology. I bet that if you work your way through a few of them with a friend, and get a feel for how these types of question are tackled, then the other exercises will seem much easier in short order.
I’m also more than happy to go over the early exercises in the book with you, if you want some assistance. PM me if you’re interested.