Meetup log: https://susam.net/maze/meet/iant/log.html
A few blog posts about it: https://susam.net/maze/tag/iant.html
I have kept an archive of all our meeting notes here: https://offbeat.cc/iant/boards/
I very much agree that attacking problems from different angles is very important in building intuition for the concepts taught in the book. However, that's something that we did not do within the 40 minute meetings. It wouldn't make sense too because I believe solving problems is very much a personal journey where different people need different amount of time to solve problems. I believe solving problems is best done on our own time. Sometimes though we did discuss the solutions of some problems in the meetings just to take a break from the theorem-and-proof style of meetings.
I solved most of the problems in the book in my own time. I know another participant who did too. Of course, that took a lot more than 80 hours. I must have spent an additional 2 to 3 hours everyday for solving the problems.
I've personally enjoyed language learning as a hobby, and found time in my commutes to listen to audio programs (I enjoy this more than anything else I could do on a commute in a crowded train, so it's no loss of time). For more casual gym-goers like myself, oftentimes running on a treadmill doesn't require full attention, so it's possible to watch video lectures or listen to more audio programs. Neither of these are as ideal as concentrated study in a quiet room with a desk, but they're relatively lower-effort ways to get useful practice with a specific subject (so it's easier to practice consistently).
I then find more time on the weekends for more dedicated study. If you're dating someone who also shares your interests in studying, they can also spend time studying alongside you (alongside more fun and relaxed dates).
To quantify this, that is about 13 hours a week of non-concentrated study (assuming a 1-hour commute each way every weekday for 10 hours, plus another 3 hours assuming studies during a 1-hour workout three times a week, at the lower end of how often you can consistently exercise). Add in another 1 hour of concentrated study a day (or if you'd like, 3 hours of extended study sessions each weekend day, plus additional scattered study during the week), and you hit 20 hours a week. You may not be as fast as the writer of the submitted article with this, but you can at least get pretty far from consistent practice over long periods of time.
I have always wondered what the truth is about this but I have never seen any real answers. On the "linear" side you have median incomes by IQ percentile. On the "not even quantitatively comparable" side you have the fact that your score on an IQ test will not increase that much if you are allowed much more than the standard time to finish it, indicating that there is a wall (defined by your ability) that you can hit. On the "sublinear" side, there's the fact that a lot of moderately smart people have made major scientific discoveries, which you wouldn't think could ever happen when there are 10,000 people with IQ > 160 in the US today - easily more than enough to take all of the places in the history books written about this decade.
I do not think there is any clear-cut answer.
The average IQ among mathematicians is somewhere between 130 and 140.
I'm not debating the claim that smart people can learn faster, but like the above I am calling the specifics into question.
You’re essentially correlating it just to processing speed which is of course important, but you can still have a significant +z score and need more time to absorb material. BTW, g (a statistical construct in psychometrics for general intelligence) according to research is best estimated through the measurement of reasoning ability on a standardized IQ test (WAIS, Standford - Binet) whereas the processing speed part of the test doesn’t significantly contribute to it.
But that is not the point. My point is super-smart people can pick up and master concepts very fast.