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andycrellin 2 days ago

This has always caused me trouble when learning new concepts. A name for something will be given (e.g. manifold) and it sounds very much like something that I've come across before (e.g. a manifold in an engine) - and that then gets cemented in my brain as a relationship which I find extremely difficult to shake - and it makes understanding the new concept very challenging. More often than not the etymology of the term is not provided with the concept - not entirely unreasonable, but also not helpful for me personally.

It becomes a bigger problem when the etymology is actually a chain of almost arbitrary naming decisions - how far back do I go?!

Enginerrrd 2 days ago | parent [-]

On many occasions in my mathematics education I was able to figure out and use a concept based solely on its name. (e.g. Feynman path integral)

Names are important.