Are there any mathematicians out there? Not math teachers. Mathematicians. Is it vital as a mathematician that you had memorized your times tables?
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I refused to learn my times tables until 6th grade. Still have a tiny delay remembering 7x8.
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Replying to @St_Rev @ryan_nayr_ and
I had an unusual difficulty, I came up with rules for finding the answer, double twice for x4, etc. My older son has this too, though perhaps not as bad. Didn't have any rule for 7's, so had to memorize more there. Didn't stop me from getting BS in applied math.
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It seems being good at math makes you bad at arithmetic, because, when you are like seven years old, you figure out clever hacks to deal with special cases, instead of just memorizing the whole damn thing, which is painful but actually more efficient.
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Replying to @Meaningness @St_Rev and
There's that, but my impression is that simple memorization is harder for me. I remember all kinds of stuff, but it has to have semantic associations. Obscure vocabulary or all the bones in the body, no problem.
1 reply 1 retweet 4 likes
Yes, true for me. And even associations are much less good than actual understanding, in some larger framework. I got stuck in analysis class because professor wouldn’t explain what a real number was. Couldn’t continue until I found out for myself.
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