If you read it you’ll see that you do not have to be a child prodigy, don’t have to start early on, don’t need a good formal education and do not need to appear particular smart to work wonders (at least in mathematics). There are dozens of examples.
“[Isaac] Newton (1642-1727) … was educated at local schools of low educational
standards and as a youth showed no special flair, except for an interest in mechanical
devices.”
“Before Newton and Leibniz, the man who did most to introduce analytical
methods in the calculus was John Wallis (1616-1703). … he did not begin to learn
mathematics until he was about twenty — his university education at Cambridge was devoted to theology...”
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), co-discoverer of the calculus and a
pioneer logician, “knew almost no mathematics up to 1672 [when he was 26].”
“Hermann Günther Grassmann (1809-77) [discoverer of vector algebra], …
showed no talent for mathematics as a youth and … had no university education in mathematics, but later became a teacher of mathematics in the gymnasium (high
school) at Stettin, Germany...”
Francois Viète (1540-1603), who laid the foundations for the algebraic approach
to geometry, spent most of his life in high public office; “it was only during the time he
had free from official duties that he was able to devote himself to mathematics.”
Gerard Desargues (1591-1661), one of the pioneers of projective geometry, was
self-educated. Yet “Desargues was one of the most original mathematicians in a
century rich in genius.”
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), co-discoverer of the calculus, was selftaught in mathematics.
James Bernoulli (1655-1705), a member of the remarkable Bernoulli family that
made so many contributions to the early development of the calculus, was self-taught.
I like learning new things and love reading but any new ideas require a ton of thought and re-reading.
Don’t be intimidated by most of the people on LW. They largely are not smarter but much more educated. A lot of the people here on LW have the best formal education in the world so they came across a lot of concepts before. Things are not obvious to them either, they just learnt to accept them. Is 1 + 1 = 2 really obvious? No! The last page of Russel and Whitehead’s proof that 1+1=2 could be found on page 378 of the Principia Mathematica. The complete proof of 2 + 2 = 4 involves 2,452 subtheorems in a total of 25,933 steps!
How is the educational level of the participants of this forum, by the way?
Just to continue your list of spectacular infos from math history: Newton probably suffered from microcephalia (as was speculated upon at Leibniz) by alcohol abuse of his mother during pregnancy.
If someone wants to walk in the footsteps of Ramanujan, here the textbook he used as teenager for autodidactism. Unfortunately I do not know if anyone tried that book with teenagers. Here someone’s collection of basic math texts by which Gauß, Euler and other math geniusses learned to make their first steps.
You might want to read this PDF: http://www.occampress.com/grades/grmath.pdf
If you read it you’ll see that you do not have to be a child prodigy, don’t have to start early on, don’t need a good formal education and do not need to appear particular smart to work wonders (at least in mathematics). There are dozens of examples.
“[Isaac] Newton (1642-1727) … was educated at local schools of low educational standards and as a youth showed no special flair, except for an interest in mechanical devices.”
“Before Newton and Leibniz, the man who did most to introduce analytical methods in the calculus was John Wallis (1616-1703). … he did not begin to learn mathematics until he was about twenty — his university education at Cambridge was devoted to theology...”
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), co-discoverer of the calculus and a pioneer logician, “knew almost no mathematics up to 1672 [when he was 26].”
“Hermann Günther Grassmann (1809-77) [discoverer of vector algebra], … showed no talent for mathematics as a youth and … had no university education in mathematics, but later became a teacher of mathematics in the gymnasium (high school) at Stettin, Germany...”
Francois Viète (1540-1603), who laid the foundations for the algebraic approach to geometry, spent most of his life in high public office; “it was only during the time he had free from official duties that he was able to devote himself to mathematics.”
Gerard Desargues (1591-1661), one of the pioneers of projective geometry, was self-educated. Yet “Desargues was one of the most original mathematicians in a century rich in genius.”
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), co-discoverer of the calculus, was selftaught in mathematics.
James Bernoulli (1655-1705), a member of the remarkable Bernoulli family that made so many contributions to the early development of the calculus, was self-taught.
Don’t be intimidated by most of the people on LW. They largely are not smarter but much more educated. A lot of the people here on LW have the best formal education in the world so they came across a lot of concepts before. Things are not obvious to them either, they just learnt to accept them. Is 1 + 1 = 2 really obvious? No! The last page of Russel and Whitehead’s proof that 1+1=2 could be found on page 378 of the Principia Mathematica. The complete proof of 2 + 2 = 4 involves 2,452 subtheorems in a total of 25,933 steps!
How is the educational level of the participants of this forum, by the way?
Just to continue your list of spectacular infos from math history: Newton probably suffered from microcephalia (as was speculated upon at Leibniz) by alcohol abuse of his mother during pregnancy.
If someone wants to walk in the footsteps of Ramanujan, here the textbook he used as teenager for autodidactism. Unfortunately I do not know if anyone tried that book with teenagers. Here someone’s collection of basic math texts by which Gauß, Euler and other math geniusses learned to make their first steps.