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Comment by necklesspen | Hacker News Reader

It's a truly wonderful read, made better by the fact the author doesn't quite understand what's going on.

The usual format that fun mathematics is presented (being talked at by someone who is very well versed in the subject) comes with a heavy cognitive burden - and often I just can't really make it through.

When the author is not an expert the writing is just so much more accessible - it's easier to understand and making it through feels more of an adventure and less of a lecture.

I've never thought previously how much I would enjoy this format though. I'm here to see more amateurs stumbling through mathematics.

Also, wasn't expecting this sort of side-quest from the guy who got me into React.

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Agreed! I've always been interested in the field of mathematics, only to be let down by my lack of ability to comprehend it. I can usually follow an article up until the point that it starts using formulae.

I love this approachable prose.

If anyone is aware of any other "mathematics for people who don't know mathematics" resources I'd greatly appreciate any links.

OK this is probably not quite what you meant but I'll shoot: I highly recommend Terence Tao's Analysis textbook (which now also has a Lean counterpart on GitHub). You can skip Chapter 1 (it sets up the motivation but I couldn't answer most questions, which is part of the point). From Chapter 2, it builds up in a somewhat "dry" but actually very accessible and methodical way. It is "mathematical" but it is "for people who don't know mathematics" in the sense that it forces you to build the entire mathematics from scratch, including proving things like `a + b = b + a` as exercises. This is actually how I got into proofs in the first place, with later picking up Lean by doing Natural Number Game.

Since you respect Terence Tao, but not the general population of mathematicians, maybe you’ll read his blog posts which describe the ways your actions are detrimental to human striving.

I’ve replied to this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49762433

You did not.

Edit I apologize to Dan Abramov for venting my frustrations about things outside of either of our control and unfairly using him as a punching bag. He seems to be an intelligent person and I hope he continues learning mathematics using whatever tools he sees fit, including AI. It was wrong of me to do this and I will take a break from this website for one week.

Thanks, I'll have a read

Are you talking about the posted article? I agree that it was a fun read, but it did not present any mathematics at all. Like, none. Its not that the author not being an expert made it easy to understand, it's that there was nothing mathematical to understand presented.

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