I still remember the realization in college at Flinders University in Australia that mathematics was not just an abstract game of symbols but could be used as a tool to analyze and understand the modern world.
Terence TaoRead
When you're concentrating hard, hours can fly by, and it's just you and a math problem.
Interpretation
Focus can make time feel fleeting while engaging with challenging tasks.
This quote highlights the unique experience of deep concentration, especially in the context of solving complex problems. It suggests that when one is fully immersed in an intellectually demanding activity, such as mathematics, the passage of time becomes irrelevant, replaced by a sense of connection between the individual and the challenge at hand.
In practice
During a seminar on the importance of focus in problem-solving.
I still remember the realization in college at Flinders University in Australia that mathematics was not just an abstract game of symbols but could be used as a tool to analyze and understand the modern world.
Most students who take math classes aren't going to be mathematicians. They're going to be engineers, statisticians - in many ways, that's the more important mission of math education.
For me, I guess the main motivation is the satisfaction of finally understanding some tricky mathematical concept or phenomenon and then explaining it to others.
One can think of any given axiom system as being like a computer with a certain limited amount of memory or processing power. One could switch to a computer with even more storage, but no matter how large an amount of storage space the computer has, there will still exist some tasks that are beyond its ability.
I recall being fascinated by numbers even at age three and viewed their manipulation as a kind of game.
Talent is important, but how one develops and nurtures it is even more so.
Our degeneration, when it is traced back to its origin in our view of the world really consists in the fact that true optimism has vanished unperceived from our midst.
It only serves to show what sort of person a man must be who can't even get testimonials. No, no; if a man brings references, it proves nothing; but if he can't, it proves a great deal.
The disease that knowledge brings is arrogance, and the disease that worship brings is showing off
Breath is the vehicle of consciousness and so, by its slow measured observation and distribution, we learn to tug our attention away from external desires toward a judicious, intelligent awareness.
Every human action, whether it has become positive or negative, must depend on motivation.
More and more I believe in the fact that you have two hands and two legs, and the thing is how to make good use of yourself - and that's about it.
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