rsp1984 12 hours ago

Don't despair. The key to becoming proficient in advanced subjects like this one is to first try to understand the fundamentals in plain language and pictures in your mind. Ignore the equations. Ask AI to explain the topic at hand at the most fundamental level.

Once the fundamental concepts are understood, what problem is being solved and where the key difficulties are, only then the equations will start to make sense. If you start out with the math, you're making your life unnecessarily hard.

Also, not universally true but directionally true as a rule of thumb, the more equations a text contains the less likely it is that the author itself has truly grasped the subject. People who really grasp a subject can usually explain it well in plain language.

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griffzhowl 10 hours ago | parent [-]

> People who really grasp a subject can usually explain it well in plain language.

That's very much a matter of style. An equation is often the plainest way of expressing something

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rsp1984 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The problem is that equations give the illusion of conciseness and brevity but in reality always heavily depend on context.

You give a physicist an equation of a completely unrelated field in mathematics and it will make zero sense to them because they lack the context. And vice versa. The only people who can readily read and understand your equations are those that already understand the subject and have learned all the context around the math.

Therefore it's pointless to try to start with the math when you're foreign to a field. It simply won't make any sense without the context.

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griffzhowl 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Of course, but everything depends on context. Stating a mathematical theorem in English will also make no sense to someone who's not acquainted with the field

	▲	rsp1984 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		You can start with plain language and work your way up towards the math. But it doesn't work the other way round.